Library collections and services during Covid-19: Qatar National Library experience

Medawar, K., & Tabet, M. (2020). Library collections and services during Covid-19: Qatar National Library experience. Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues, 30(2–3), 178–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/0955749020986377

 Summary:

This article talks about the changes made in library collections and services during the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on the Qatar National Library. Because of the pandemic, many libraries like the Qatar National Library had to change the way they handled their collection and resources. Global and international library associates came together to put together guides and best practices and protocols in order to deal with the situation. Maybe hybrid libraries (with physical and electronic resources) had to switch to digital in a short amount of time. The Qatar National Library just opened in November 2017, and it known as a National, Public, and Research library. This space is quite exceptional looking and was designed so elegantly and beautifully. Their open space was inviting to all visitors and they also had more than one million books and more than 500,000 e-books, periodicals, newspapers, and special collections. Unfortunately, the library had to close it's doors in March 2020 because of the pandemic and they had to initiate a digital transformation with a huge impact on staff, services, and collections. This library used to host 90 events per month, but because of the pandemic, they had to replace those events with online Microsoft Teams events. There was also increase of social media use to promote programs and resources because that was their best way to get the word out. 

Insight and Thoughts: 

Reading through one library's experience definitely gives you a perspective of how quickly and easily their focus can change. Within a few years, they had to completely alter their way of presenting their services and resources to their patrons. All that money, effort, and time spent on a phenomenal space, and they had to shut it all down. The designers and creators had a vision of people coming into this library in big groups to show off their design and artistic interior, but now it is so much different from what they had imagined it would be. It makes me wonder if any future developers in libraries will want to spend all this money on designing physical spaces when more and more resources will be available online. Will there be a need for spaces like this? Will people prefer to come together in a building like this when everything is easily assessible online? Digital transformation has become so crucial and almost normal to our current society. The new generation will expect their resources to be available remotely. It also goes to show how adaptable library and library collection management has to be. There could be so many factors that come into play when it comes to collection planning and management. Curve balls can be thrown at you at anytime, and as librarians, we'll need to be prepared for them!