Information Seeking Behavior of Nursing Faculty During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Academics Libraries have developed electronic collections to provide continuing services to their patrons especially during research. Databases and other scholarly online resources have become the main support system of many academic libraries. Beginning in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had a powerfully disruptive and transformative influence on libraries all over the world and some of the services were altered. The University of Memphis Libraries was not an exception. Meeting the challenges associated with significantly increased need for online content, the University Libraries continued to provide access to scholarly resources and supportive reference and instruction services to the diverse academic communities which include the Loewenberg College of Nursing with 52 full time faculty, 785 undergraduate students, and 261 graduate students enrolled on two campuses (Office of International Research, 2019). Branch librarians, authors of this paper, support the research of nursing faculty at each campus and seek to investigate their use and satisfaction with current Health Sciences online library resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also assessed their information-seeking strategies throughout. The data collected in a survey served to analyze access and use of library databases, search engines, and other online resources during research inquiries and queries specifically related to COVID19 information. While the focus group for this study is nursing faculty, findings from the study may also inform improved support of information-seeking faculty in other disciplines.