The impact of COVID 19 at the University of Guyana Berbice Campus Library

Abstract

Prior to COVID 19 pandemic University of Guyana Berbice Campus Library patrons were required to visit the physical library to access most of the services provided. Despite the fact that in many other countries, libraries were online and offered digitized collection in either a part or in its entirety. The advent of virtual or digitize library early history was not documented but several key thinkers are connected to the emergence of the concept which can be traced back to 1895.  (Lynch, 2005).  The visions of the digital library were largely realized a century later during the great expansion of the Internet, with access to the books and searching of the documents by millions of individuals on the World Wide Web. Stocker (2014)…( as cited in Digital library 2022).Today a large percentage of libraries have reduced their physical collections and converted fully or partial virtual libraries. Some collection remains physical for many different reasons including copyright regulations.  At the University of Guyana Berbice Campus Library, this activity of digitization information had only recently started.  The hindrance to this process can be attributed to the lack of both financial and human resources. Due to COVID -19 and the shutdown of campuses, the library staff commenced working from home. In this mode there were no physical disturbance from students and not having to handle the many normal physical tasks, staff members were able to focus on the many tasks of digitizing different aspects of its collection. Exam papers, course outlines, newspapers clippings are just some of the collections being digitized currently, the library services were extended largely through email and different modes of social media meeting the library patrons in their comfort zone. Resilience became the new motto in trying to adopt and manage the changes experienced at the University of Guyana Berbice Campus Library when it was faced with the shut down of the physical services due to COVID-19.