Keeping Pace with COVID-19 - Federal Library LibGuides During the Pandemic

Objectives: Last winter, the world saw the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). A year later, and cases continue to increase. In the last decade, librarians have been increasing their roles in infectious disease response, as seen during previous outbreaks. There is no existing literature on the use of the widely-used library website platform LibGuides, in response to infectious disease outbreaks. Government agency libraries disseminate information, differing in content by audience. We set out to see how Federal Libraries use LibGuides to distribute COVID-19 information throughout the ongoing pandemic.

Methods: The research protocol and survey were approved by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center IRB and the Defense Health Agency. Twenty survey questions were designed - two questions screened for participants appropriate for the study, and three questions collected broad demographic information to assist in identifying duplicate responses from individual libraries. Remaining questions focused on the creation, curation, and maintenance of COVID-19 LibGuides. Questions were peer-reviewed by colleagues. The survey was created in Max.gov, a Federal Government data collection and analysis tool. The survey was made available for three weeks, and authors sent invitations to potential participants through emails (including listservs) and personal social media accounts. We exported collected data into Excel to quantify and visualize results. Long form answers were manually reviewed and tagged thematically based on responses. Shared data will be blinded.

Results: Thirty-four percent of respondents reported that their library uses LibGuides; 45% of these respondents said they spent 10+ hours creating their LibGuide, and 60% of respondents spent

Conclusions: We are currently forming/writing our conclusion. Data analysis is ongoing, but initial findings show that, while Federal Librarians do not have universal access to LibGuides, most are curating content specific to COVID-19 through some platform. These LibGuides are used to share COVID-19 information most relevant to a library’s target audience and often include other U.S. Government-created resources. Because of LibGuide’s ease of set-up and external access, libraries can quickly add content or pivot to meet demands of patrons. Due to the rapid, ongoing response to the pandemic, many respondents have not yet considered long-term plans to preserve COVID-19 LibGuides. Future research may include development of best practices for creating LibGuides as part of library rapid response to public health emergencies.