Abstract

This paper reports the results of a survey undertaken in December 2021 and January 2022 related to public library staff in the United Kingdom and their experiences of COVID-19, exploring the lockdowns that were enabled, the subsequent re-openings, their mental health, and their views for the future of the service post-COVID-19. Over 200 responses were received, and the findings indicate a range of views. The importance of the library as a community resource is evident in the comments from staff, and their observations of patrons on library re-openings. Findings also indicate concern for the future of the library service, and fear that new technologies like e-books may be seen as adequate replacements for the traditional library service. Findings also indicate staff face stress and mental health issues in terms of dealing with patrons while the virus remains highly prevalent.

Rights

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Cite as

Robinson, E., Ruthven, I. & McMenemy, D. 2022, 'Delivering services in the new normal: recording the experiences of UK public library staff during the COVID-19 pandemic', Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09610006221093371

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Last updated: 01 July 2022
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