it helps the students to read and acquire information from different sites while sitting at their home

1. LIBRARY SERVICES
DURING THE COVID-19
PANDEMIC
Dr. Gurjeet Kaur Uppal
Ph: 9877132854
Email geetuppal3@gmail.com

2. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic made a tragic impact
on the entire world throughout the economy, education,
businesses, health, jobs and so on. In order to survive from this
disease, and to minimize the losses, most of the businesses and
educational institutions switched to the virtual and offered
online services with the help of technology.

3. Libraries during COVID-19: user perspective:
Throughout the world, the Library as a cultural hub or academic space suffered most
from the closure; the pandemic caused the disruption of events, reduction and
suspension of access to the space, thus paralyzing the borrowing activities and all
related services offered inside the Library. In addition, visiting the Library in some
countries required booking a pre-confirmed appointment, in alignment with the
Government decisions and policies.

4. But in spite of this, Many major Libraries of world as well as of India have
been taking various actions to provide library services to support teaching
and learning activities during COVID-19 period. Libraries, like many
others service-based organizations and social institutions, are switching to
online mode for services delivery. To ensure the health and safety of staff
and patrons, these libraries are providing limited face-to-face assistance.

5. Health and well-being of Library Users
No doubt safeguarding health and well-being of staff and students is always the top priority when providing
library services during COVID-19. Hence, Libraries should implement the following major precautionary
health measures to prevent the spreading of COVID-19 inside the Library:
 Users are required to wear a face mask before entering the Library.
 Seating is strategically arranged to maintain social distancing.
 Group gatherings at tables are not permitted.
 Group study rooms should temporarily closed.
The Library should also provides hand sanitizers at service counters and in different area of the library
buildings, and has scheduled regular intensive cleaning. Book sterilizers should be used to handle returned
books

6. Library Services during Pandemic
1. Remote Access: The main aim of any academic library is to enhance and strengthen
the teaching, learning and research process by installing seamless
document/information delivery system. Library has to display step by step user guide
on remote login to get access to the licensed E-resources. Even a library can provide
common institutional ID and password to all its users to access e- resources.
2. Document scanning services: library should have to provide document scanning
services to its users. 20% of the book that is only available in print form can be
scanned and send through email or WhatsApp to user.

7. 3. Library App: Most of the libraries are providing e- resources and services
through their Apps. Its easy to use and help to get to know about new
upcoming of library
4. Inter-Library Loan: Interlibrary loan service can be provided for print
and electronic materials (articles, copies, and book chapters). Library or
particular college can request to other colleges to provide needed resources to
their users on their college IDs.
5. Wake up wall: now a days libraries start their blog wall to encourage their
students and faculty to share their views, thoughts, creativities through
paintings and videos etc. This wall will help to show the hidden talent of
users.

8. 6. Free and expended Access: some publishers are providing expanded access to e-
resources (access to additional materials than subscribed by the library) including e-
books, e-journals, e-databases etc. for a limited period during this pandemic.
Libraries should highlight these links of these free and expanded resources on their
portal to facilitate visibility of these options available for users.
7. Open Access Resources: Beyond this, there are many scholarly freely available
resources. Libraries should have to highlight the link on their blog or webpage.

9. 8. Freely accessible resources from Major publishers: many renowned publishers
and suppliers of e-resources provides free resources to educational institutes and
supported the librarians in their mission to deliver undisrupted and reliable
information services to patrons. Here are some examples from prominent publishers:
 Sage: created a Covid hub that includes podcasts, presentations, legislations,
wellness essentials and more, https://www.sage.com/en-us/coronavirus/.
 Elsevier ScienceDirect: compiled a resource packet that includes toolkits,
resources for libraries’ reopening and more,
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/library-connect/covid-19-resources-for-
librarians-and-their-library-users .
 Springer Nature: launched a page ‘Library resources to assist with the pandemic’
https://www.springernature.com/gp/librarians/landing/covid19-library-resources

10. 9. UGC Initiatives during COVID-19: The UGC has released a
list of initiatives which the academic community can utilize their
time as the country is in a lockdown due to the coronavirus
outbreak. The initiatives include SWAYAM, MOOCs etc. These
resources, which are in the form of digital platforms, can be
accessed by the teachers, students and researchers in Universities
and Colleges for broadening their horizon of learning. This
initiative should be informed to all the faculty members, students
and research scholars. Following is the list of some of the initiatives
along with their access links:

11.  SWAYAM online courses:
https://storage.googleapis.com/uniquecourses/online.html
provides access to best teaching learning resources which
were earlier delivered on the SWAYAM Platform may be now
viewed by any learner free of cost without any registration.
 UG/PG MOOCs:
http://ugcmoocs.inflibnet.ac.in/ugcmoocs/moocs_courses.php
hosts learning material of the SWAYAM UG and PG (Non-
Technology) archived courses.

12. e-PG Pathshala: http://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/
hosts high quality, curriculum-based, interactive e-
content containing 23,000 modules (e-text and video) in
70 Post Graduate disciplines of social sciences, arts, fine
arts and humanities, natural & mathematical sciences.
 CEC-UGC YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/cecedusat
provides access to unlimited educational curriculum
based lectures which are absolutely free.

13. National Digital Library: NDLI is a digital repository
of a vast amount of academic content in different formats
Students of Science, Engineering, Social Science and
Arts streams can get benefited by visiting
https://www.ndl.gov.in/ or https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in / and
clicking “Corona Outbreak: Study from home” button on
top to access, free of cost, Video lectures, Web courses
Notes, Questions, Solutions, etc. on various subject areas
they are studying.

14.  Shodhganga: https://shodhganaa.inflibnet.ac.in is a digital repository
platform of 2,60,000 Indian Electronic Theses and Dissertations for research
students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire
scholarly community in open access.
 e-Shodh Sindhu: https://ess.inflibnet.ac.in/ provides current as well as
archival access to more than 15,000 cores and peer-reviewed journals and a
number of bibliographic, citation and factual databases in different
disciplines from a large number of publishers and aggregators to its member
institutions, including centrally-funded technical institutions, universities and
colleges that are covered under I2 (B) and 2 (f) Sections of the UGC Act

15.  e-Content courseware in UG subjects: 87 Undergraduate courses with
about 24,110 e-content modules is available on the CEC website at
http://cec.nic.in/
 SWAYAMPRABHA: https://www.swayamprabha.gov.in/
is a group of 32 DTH channels providing high quality educational
curriculum based course contents covering diverse disciplines such as arts,
science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities
subjects, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture etc. to all
teachers, students and citizens across the country interested in lifelong
learning.

16. Open accessible E-books and Learning materials for Limited period
Many publishers are temporarily providing free access to eBooks and other e-Content during the COVID-19 crisis.
 Ebsco eBook Academic Collection
Thousands of e-books on academic subjects
 Ebook Central
Proquest is providing unlimited access to all owned titles in eBook Central.
 Vital Source
Free access to eTextbooks to students a from over 100 publishers, including Oxford University Press, Cambridge,
University of Chicago, MacMillan, among others.
 RedShelf
In collaboration with the academic publishing community, RedShelf is providing free and convenient access to their
learning materials. Students need to create a free log-in to access.

17.  Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is making higher education textbooks in HTML format
free to access online during the coronavirus outbreak. Over 700 textbooks,
published and currently available, on Cambridge Core. They also provide free
access to BLUE BOOKS (related to history of political thoughts). Free access is
available until the end of July 2021.
 Project MUSE: Currently, Project MUSE providing access to over 700 journals from
125 publishers and offers nearly 70,000 books from more than 140 presses.

18.  Oxford University Press: provides a number of free resources that will helpful for both
teachers and students
 University of Michigan Press eBook Collection: Access restrictions will be removed
for all 1,150+ titles in the UMP EBC until the end of June 2021. Note they will be free-
to-read, not to download, during this time.
 National Emergency Library: provide limited access to books that supports
emergency remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and
intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are
closed.

19.  Bloomsbury: Books and digital resources in the humanities, social
sciences, performing and visual arts
 Elsevier: 256 Textbooks across many subjects
 HeinOnline: Resources related to politics, history, criminal justice,
religious studies, and business.
 Annual Reviews: Free access to science journals
 JoVE: Free access to science education videos
 Brill Open Access to E-Books and E-Journal: Brill is one of the largest
Open Access publishers published 400 Open Access books, 25 full Open
Access journals and hundreds of Open Access articles in the Humanities and
Social Sciences.

20. Open Accessible Resources (Always Free)
 Archive.org: Non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
 Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE): Indexes academic web resources, including journals,
institutional repositories, digital collections etc. www.base-search.net
 CORE : provide unlimited access to Open access research papers. www.core.ac.uk
 DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): Provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed
journals. www.doaj.org
 EThOS : ( e-these online service) Download 500,000 Doctoral theses from the British Library
www.ethos.bl.uk
 HathiTrust: ( non profit organization) Collaboration of academic and research libraries preserving 17+
million digitized items. https://www.hathitrust.org/
 OpenAcess : Digital Theological Library: Curates high-quality content in religious studies and related
disciplines from publisher websites, institutional repositories, scholarly societies, archives, and stable public domain
collections in all languages.. https://oadtl.org
 /

21.  Paperity: multidisciplinary aggregator of open access journals and papers.
https://paperity.org/
 Post-Reformation Digital Library: Database of digital books relating to the development
of theology and philosophy during the Reformation and Post-Reformation/Early Modern
Era (late 15th-18th c.). https://www.prdl.org/
 PscyCritiques : Contains 43,056 full-text reviews of books in psychology and the social
sciences, as well as professional videos and popular films from a psychological perspective.
It is closed in 2017.but information can access through American Psychological Association
https://www.apa.org/
 American Society for Microbiology: freely available material about COVID-19
 Clarivate Analytics: Launched a global resource site to help medical researchers and

22.  Sage Publishing
Provides access to a list research articles related to the coronavirus that are freely available on SAGE Journals. It
includes research both in science, technology, and medicine and in the social and behavioral sciences. SAGE will
continue to make new research available related to the virus as it is published.
 Springer Nature
The latest coronavirus research and news items are freely available from Springer Nature. This material is
authoritative and could help on a broad scale. This is one of two landing pages for the content.
 NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine)
A collection of articles and other resources on the Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, including clinical reports,
management guidelines, and commentary. All Journal content related to the Covid-19 pandemic is freely
available.
 Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press has made content from online resources and leading journals freely accessible to assist
researchers, medical professionals, policy makers, and others who are working to address this potential health
crisis.

23.  Elsevier
Elsevier gives full access to its content on its COVID-19 Information Center for PubMed
Central and other public health databases to accelerate fight against coronavirus.
www.elsevier.com
 Emerald Publishing
Free content related to Coronavirus and the management of epidemics.
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com
 IBIS
You’ll find a centralized hub for all coronavirus resources on the Industry Insider – check
back regularly for updated information. www.ibisworld.com

24.  Duke University Press: DUP is providing free access to the books and journal articles to
help build knowledge and understanding of how we navigate the spread of communicable
diseases. www.dukepress.edu
 Wiley Online Library
Wiley has made the relevant research articles, book chapters and entries in major
references freely available in support of the global efforts in diagnosis, treatment,
prevention and further research in this disease and similar viral respiratory infections. In
addition to the articles on this site related to the current outbreak, Wiley is also making a
collection of journal articles and our book chapters on coronavirus research freely
available to the global scientific community. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

25. 1 Internet Public Library https://www.ipl.org/
2 ACM Digital Library https://dl.acm.org/
3 Digital Library at the University of
Pennsylvania
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books
4 Digital Library of India https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/
5 IET Digital Library http://digital-library.theiet.org/
6 Kalasampada: Digital Library
Resource of Indian Cultural
Heritage
http://ignca.nic.in/dgt_0001.htm
List of some famous Digital Libraries

26. Some Famous E-books sites
 E-Book directory provide access to more than 10839 free e-books in 709 categories. http://www.e-
booksdirectory.com/
 Directory of open access Books: provide access to 43,014 academic peer-reviewed books from 621
publishers. www.doabooks.org
 Engineering Books download free engineering books from https://www.engineeringbookspdf.com
 Loyal Audio books free public domain for Audio books. http://www.loyalbooks.com/
 Manybooks.net more than 50,000 books on every categories. https://manybooks.net/
 Online book page: access to unlimited books through https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/subjects.html
 Punjab Digital library: here users can read and download books from Punjab region.
http://www.panjabdigilib.org/webuser/searches/mainpage.jsp