Public Librarians’ Roles in Supporting Their Communities During COVID-19: Research and Best Practices from the Field

Public Librarians’ Roles in Supporting Their Communities During COVID-19: Research and Best Practices from the Field

Beth St. Jean, PhD

College of Information Studies, University of Maryland

Mega Subramaniam, PhD

College of Information Studies, University of Maryland

Xenia Hernández

Saint Paul Public Library

This session will discuss research and best practices on how public libraries adapted their existing community outreach and information services and created new resources, programs, and services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Panelists will share the different categories of outreach and services that public libraries implemented with and for their communities, the skills and knowledge that librarians had to quickly learn in order to serve their communities, the partnerships that they tapped or built in order to serve their communities, how such services promoted equitable access to health information and services, and the barriers that they faced as they were implementing these services. The panelists will share examples, best practices, and resources from the public library world that illuminate the strengths of this public institution in serving their communities at the time of a crisis.

• Explain the different roles that public libraries played during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they helped to prevent and address health disparities within their communities.
• Adopt the best practices that were implemented by public libraries with and for their communities into their own contexts.
• Compare the barriers faced by public libraries to their own contexts of work and devise a plan to handle similar barriers in the future.