These are unprecedented times in academic and research libraries. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an overwhelming effect on our workplaces and our lives, upending daily life and causing widespread fear and uncertainty. We are all affected by this crisis, both personally and professionally and we hope that this finds you healthy and successfully coping with the many challenges.
The ACRL Board of Directors recognizes the stress, challenge, and difficulty of this situation. At the same time, both as Board members and within our own institutions, we are heartened by the creative and resourceful responses of ACRL members and of the library community overall. Even in this most trying time, we see library workers reaching out to support each other, sharing information, enacting equity and fairness, and finding new ways to collaborate for the common good.
ACRL’s mission is to support all of its members, in good times and bad. As ACRL Board members and librarians, we understand that the current situation is daunting. We look forward to working with you and the ACRL staff to find ways to overcome it together. And we offer our best wishes and thoughts to you and yours as we confront this unprecedented health crisis.
Managing Remote Workers
Webcast recording from Tuesday, April 7
Join Martin House, Assistant Director for Public Services at Central Piedmont Community College and incoming chair of ACRL’s Community and Junior College Libraries Section, and Cinthya Ippoliti, University Librarian and Director of the Auraria Library at University of Colorado Denver and Director-at-Large on ACRL’s Board of Directors, for tips, strategies, and discussion on effective ways to manage a suddenly remote library workforce.
Librarians and library workers are first and foremost people and, for all of us, a pandemic makes for challenging times. But we are in this together. At ACRL we want to foster community and care through technology and across distances.
To help the academic library community cope and learn from each other in challenging and rapidly changing circumstances, over the coming days and weeks we’ll post occasional discussion questions to our social media accounts using the hashtag #COVIDlibrary. We encourage you all to share your stories and learning experiences in response.
Share your stories on Facebook or Twitter. We’ll post more questions for discussion – as well as responses and resources from ACRL staff – over the coming days.
Questions
Upcoming Webinar: Confronting Xenophobia and Supporting Asian and Asian/Pacific American Communities during COVID-19
May 1, 2020, 12:00pm CT
American Libraries Live webcasts cover the full spectrum of library topics and give the ALA community a chance to learn about and discuss issues it deals with daily. Each program lasts 60 minutes.
Recordings from webcasts covering COVID-19 are below. Slides and a list of upcoming webcasts are also available from the AL Live website.
Webcast Recordings