Innovation

As colleges and universities pivot to remote and hybrid models, their libraries must find new ways to welcome and orient new students.

Could librarian-curated Little Free Libraries be the next great outreach tool to help improve youth reading scores and strengthen community connections to libraries? University of North Carolina (UNC)–Greensboro Library and Information Science Associate Professor Anthony Chow thinks so.

From youth to adults, newcomers to lifelong locals, library literacy programs that work flex to achieve what matters to each patron—with an emphasis on practical, everyday, and community-building skills.

COVID-19 is accelerating the move to digital amid budget pressures; library vendors share what they hear from customers and how they're meeting rapidly evolving needs.

When the university moved to virtual instruction in March, Cornell University Library's Virtual Reference Response Team focused on building capacity in the ways we already connected with our remote users. Leveraging our Ask a Librarian suite of email, chat, and in-depth research consultations options became our primary concern.

As libraries offer essential services during the COVID pandemic, they face the added challenge of protecting the health and safety of staff and patrons. Necessary adaptations include effective and affordable personal protective equipment (PPE) for library staff, sanitization stations for staff and patrons, touch-free checkouts, the replacement of meeting room locks with digital contactless entry devices, and revamped floor plans and public spaces.

With some libraries reopening for at least limited services, and many others doing curbside pickup, face masks are a necessity for library workers and patrons alike. These library- and book-themed offerings can make it fun and show your library love all over your face.

Online meetings have become ubiquitous for many of us. Once our library started offering Virtual Meeting Rooms to the public via Zoom, we immediately began fielding questions on how to best structure online events. Since how an event is structured has such a large impact on its success, we wanted to share some best practices we’ve learned.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down campuses, libraries helped salvage spring semesters by supporting distance learning. Plans for fall remain in limbo, but academic librarians share what they’ve learned.