Libraries and COVID-19 Crisis: Research Gaps

Abstract

Libraries since ages have remained at the forefront in preservation, organization, and dissemination of knowledge. In the health crisis created by COVID-19, most of the countries have implemented partial or complete lockdown as preventive measures to shield people from getting infected. Getting right information at right time is the need of hour for the researchers working on COVID-19 to develop vaccines or drugs for controlling the pandemic. Scientific articles on COVID-19 are doubling every 14 days, 1,2 which makes the role of librarians crucial during this period. To maintain continuity of flow of information and serve the information needs, some libraries are still open. 3 Libraries open during this period are offering document delivery services to researchers, scientists, and health workers, which raises some concerns and research gaps.Recent researches published in the Journal of Hospital Infection and New England Journal of Medicine have revealed the survival of COVID-19 virus on various inanimate surfaces (like metal, glass, plastic) and in the air. But no research has yet been conducted on the transmission of corona virus through library document surfaces like book cloth, book jackets, coated and uncoated papers, which is an alarming situation for librarians and users. Sanitizing and disinfecting the documents is, however, important for the libraries before delivering the documents to the users as a precautionary measure. But use of disinfectant and sanitizer may lead to material damages of library documents. Research needs to be carried out in this direction for developing a cleaning or disinfecting solvent that does not damage the library documents and is effective against COVID-19 infection. In order to ensure document delivery support to researchers and allow librarians during the COVID-19 pandemic, research gaps need to be filled at the earliest.