English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Karlstad University is a mid-sized university located approx. 300 km west of Stockholm with the main campus in Karlstad and a small campus at the Ingesund School of Music. The university library serves around 16,000 students and close to 1,300 staff. During the first months of 2020, there was growing awareness at Karlstad University that the COVID-19 pandemic would affect not only Sweden as a country but also higher education institutions, including their libraries. The university’s local crisis organization was activated, and plans were made for a large-scale move of all teaching from campus-based to online. At the library, a 4-level plan for a gradual closedown of the library was produced and communicated. When the Minister for Higher Education and Research, Matilda Ernkrans, on the 18th of March announced that Swedish universities should move all campus-based courses and programs to an online environment, things happened quickly. The message from the Minister was very clear, and there was no doubt that the situation was serious. In this article, we will focus on the actions taken by the library to protect staff and users from the spread of infection, while at the same time maintaining a high level of library services to its users. Moving to level 3 Already the day after the Minister’s announcement, the library went straight into level 3 of the closing down plan. The reason for skipping the "softer" levels 1 and 2 was the sharp message from the Minister and the general uncertainty at that time about how contagious the virus was. The practical meaning of level 3 was: • drastically reduced opening hours. Instead of 08.0020.00, the library was now only open 2 hours per day (12.00-14.00), and it was completely closed Saturday and Sunday; • the physical library was only open for basic services such as borrowing and returning books, picking up interlibrary loans, reservations etc.; • all study spaces – the library holds more than 1,300 seats, out of which many are set up for students working in groups – were closed. Our 30+ rooms reserved for group work were all closed; • most of the library staff started working from home. Only a minimum of staff was physically present at the library. Luckily, almost everyone had a laptop computer, which made this shift rather uncomplicated; • all library teaching moved online, i.e. teaching academic information literacy to undergraduate students as well as the library course in Information seeking and publishing strategy for Ph. D students; Abstract During March 2020, all Swedish universities moved their teaching to an online environment due to the Covid19 outbreak. Karlstad University Library in Sweden made a number of changes in order to reduce the spread of infection while at the same time maintaining a high level of library services to its users. Opening hours were drastically reduced. All study spaces were closed. Most of the staff were working from home. A new virtual reference desk via Zoom was launched to increase the library office hours. Since things happened fast, the internal staff training was done while at the same time providing the new reference service to the users. Some initial mistakes were made but in general, this ‘learn-as-you-go method’ worked surprisingly well.

Serving library users during a pandemic: the case of Karlstad University Library, Sweden