This paper aims to identify how public libraries used Twitter in the initial months after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Content analysis was performed on a dataset of 9,450 tweets published by 38 public libraries in New York City between December 2019 and April 2020. The study showed that 85.5% of the tweets published by NYC public libraries were related to regular library communications, such as announcements of library service updates, book recommendations, suggested readings and activities, celebrations of specific occasions or individuals, and notices of upcoming events. Meanwhile, 14.5% of the tweets published from January/April 2020 were directly and explicitly related to COVID-19. NYC public libraries posted details of the remote library services available during the closure, as well as comforting and socially supportive messages, and provided information about the financial, health, and food-related support available to the community. The findings suggest that during the pandemic, NYC public libraries mostly continued to conduct business as usual and, in doing so, may have brought a valuable feeling of normalcy to the communities they serve during those problematic and strained days.
Dust crisis is one of the most important environmental problems caused by climate change and drought during the last three decades in some parts of Iran, especially in its eastern and western borders. The present study is a qualitative semi-structured interview study of 11 managers and employees of public libraries in the Iranian provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Kermanshah. In the article, we document that public libraries can take major steps to better manage community needs arising from disasters and emergencies. The findings show that public libraries can take on educational, cultural, executive, and informative roles in the pre-crisis stage, executive and informative roles in the during-crisis stage, and executive and documentation roles in the post-crisis stage. Based on the results, a conceptual model is constructed, showing the role of Iranian public libraries in dealing with the dust crisis as a rotational process. In order to improve the role of public libraries in society, it is necessary that library managers and employees take appropriate measures in the three stages of pre-crisis, during-crisis, and post-crisis.
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