Open AccessImpact of COVID-19 on the Use of Academic Library Resources
Author(s) -
Ruth Sara Connell,
Lisa Wallis,
David Comeaux
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
information technology and libraries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.502
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 2163-5226
pISSN - 0730-9295
DOI - 10.6017/ital.v40i2.12629
Subject(s) - interlibrary loan , covid-19 , pandemic , academic library , higher education , library science , computer science , world wide web , political science , medicine , virology , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , outbreak , law
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted higher education, including academic libraries. This paper compares the use of library resources (including interlibrary loan, website and discovery tool pageviews, database use, patron interactions, etc.) at three university libraries before and after the pandemic. The latter part of the 2019 and 2020 spring semesters are the time frames of focus, although two control time frames from earlier in those semesters are used to determine how the semesters differed when the coronavirus was not a factor. The institutions experienced similar patterns of use across many metrics.