Seeking Libraries for Pandemic Profiles

Pandemic Profile

Will your library participate in a profiling exercise?
  • We are looking for libraries to work with students from the University of South Carolina's library science program. The class is building case studies of how libraries are responding to the pandemic, the resulting economic downturn, and the wide-scale racial protests. The course and profile focus on community engagement and services.

    What do the case studies consist of?

    • The Situation: An overview of the library including quantitative data like Service Area/Population, community demographics, a description of the Library, the library’s Mission Statement
    • The Closing: A review and narrative of how the library closed or changed services at the onset of the pandemic in March of 2020. This can include community messaging, what services were available during lock down, a sense of the community impact from the virus and racial protests.
    • The Reopening: Current Status, internal Narratives (the messaging being shared within the organization/library), external narratives (the messaging being shared with the community)
    • The Plan Forward: What changes will be implemented within the library in a new normal established after the pandemic?

    What is required to participate?

    • You will need to provide about 3 hours of your time to talk with students.
    • Students will need to record interviews with an administrator, a front-line librarian, and a community member. In the case of school libraries or single librarian libraries, the interviews will be with the librarian and two community members.
    • You will be asked to review the case study
  • The best way(s) to reach you: email, phone
  • We want to match student teams to library settings they are interested in. Please check all that apply (hold down the control key for multiple selections)
  • Add information here for special libraries or special circumstances (or questions).

Do You Want More Real Time Sessions?

We’ve done two months worth of conversations with folks like Matt Finch and the Doctors Green. When we started we planned to go through April, but is there interest in adding more sessions through May or just keep it going? Please fill out the form below.

More and Real Time

Are you interested in continuing the Real TIme sessions?

VIDEO: Augusta Baker Diversity Lecture Series – Dr. Barbara Jones

March 26, 2020

Intellectual Freedom and Censorship My talk will concern how intellectual freedom and social justice sometimes clash in such situations as hate speech. I will use a recent example, from the Urbana, IL Free Library, of the controversy over the use of sex/gender terminology and dialogue re: LGBTQ people. The questions: Should libraries allow programs with speakers who do not accept the current definitions and activities of transgender people? What should libraries do with books and articles that are now deemed outdated in their definitions? How can a library uphold its ethical principles and still include all people in their selection of information and programming?

Stuart Hamilton Real Time

Tuesday, April 14

Stuart Hamilton, Head of Libraries Development in Ireland is coordinating NAPLE’s information gathering on the COVID-19 situation with libraries in Europe, as well as working with IFLA on the global public library overview, and the National Library overview as well. He will provide a roundup of where they are at in terms of services open or closed, and what new things are coming up in response to the situation.

Real Time After Dark

For those who can’t join the Real Time sessions and want to talk, we’ve set up a Real Time After Dark session for our colleagues in the Eastern Hemisphere. No scheduled guest, but an informal get together where we can talk about the last weeks sessions or librarianship in general. Here are the details:

Monday 30 March at 9am Eastern Australia Time

https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/54fb30c092464e6ab7fd53faffd6399b