Responding to physical limitations with expanded media at the UMD Libraries

Jennifer Cotton and Lorraine Woods, UMD Libraries

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the educational environment for all of the University of Maryland, including the Interlibrary Loan and Course Reserves services at the UMD Libraries. In this presentation we will outline the changes we’ve undertaken (some temporary, some potentially permanent) in our efforts to provide the best services possible to our faculty and students. For both ILL and Course Reserves, pandemic conditions have made providing physical materials either problematic or prohibitive. In response, we have shifted our emphasis to providing electronic access to materials, and many patrons have embraced this different format and have seen the value in requesting chapters instead of entire physical books, creating a new standard for sharing materials. With the growing recovery of our campus and our partners, we hope to both continue to nurture the adoption of electronic materials while also resuming the provision of physical materials in situations where that is preferable. Our goal is to provide you with a better understanding of some of the resources currently available to you through the UMD Libraries and ways they are likely to continue evolving, as well as to offer some ideas of ways we can support you and your students.

Presentation