This editorial piece looks at spotting trends for academic libraries in the post-pandemic world. Personally, I do not think we are in a post-pandemic world, but as I often say, I am not a pundit nor do I play one on TV. Anyhow, the last two years have been challenging for us in academic libraries, large or small. We had to improvise, adapt, and overcome in order to serve our students. In our case, we did do quite a bit of work in order to respond and adapt our services to more online settings. Our library did have some structure in place to accomplish this. The college overall had to work at it a bit more mainly because we are a residential campus, but the college did adapt as well. The article's author suggests that these new experiences will continue to shape academia in the post-pandemic world. Do keep in mind that for the most part, as usual in many LIS articles, this one focuses more on larger institutions like ACRL members and its UK counterpart. I am more interested to see if anything can be useful to us here in our more modest and smaller setting.
Some key quotes, with my comments.
"The pandemic has heightened the importance and significance of being able to operate in a hybrid manner and how libraries deliver services in online environments" (2).
By now, an increase in online learning is a given, and it is more significant in the COVID times. COVID and online learning are here to stay, which should not surprise anyone.
"Brine and Knight (2021) actually discuss the continued increasing cost of digital content, and the impact that the pandemic has had on this issue" (2).
This has been and continues to be a constant, the increasing costs. As I often say these days, this is one of the things I do not need cartomancy for.
On another note, as the article mentions, open access has expanded. However, the work is barely starting. It is nowhere near where it could be or should be.
"By 2020, the ACRL trends around students have become more about 'student wellbeing and mental health,' illustrating that whilst the focus may have changed, the importance of understanding and supporting students has never diminished" (3).
The 2020 report would look at data before the pandemic, Even then wellbeing and mental health were emerging as issues. If anything, the pandemic has made issues of wellness and mental health worse given the higher stress students, along with faculty and staff, face during these Hard Times. As for how higher education has handled it, well, based on observation I'd say inconsistently.
"Academic librarians will need to manage and curate data more and more, and consequently will need to become more 'data literate'" (5).
We continue to use data and evidence to guide our decisions, but the point here is that there are and will be more additional data sources to consider.
"Academic libraries continue to lead the way in decolonization and liberation work and initiatives within their institutions, but much still needs to be done to address the unbalanced nature of the academic library workforce and how this reflects on the support and services provided for the users of those libraries" (5).
Naturally, something had to be said to diversity and inclusion. Given the climate in the U.S. as of this post, I am a bit skeptical about claiming that academic libraries lead the way in the liberation work. Some might, but others are failing at it. Even here I know we do what we can, but there is still work to do.
Citation for the article: Leo Appleton, "Trendspotting-- Looking to the Future in a Post-Pandemic Academic Library Environment." New Review of Academic Leadership, 28.1 (2022): 1-6.
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