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Minakshi Sharma

Minakshi Sharma is an Information & Policy Management Consultant at Toronto Public Health (TPH). Designing a survey for library staff has been a humbling experience. She has experience planning instruction sessions, conducting comprehensive searches and tackling information or data management tasks within academic, public health, and hospital libraries for over 15 years. Minakshi is an alum of the Association of Research Libraries Kaleidoscope Program. Currently, she is serving as Past-President for the Toronto Health Library Association.


Intervention

12/06
11:40
20minutes
Dependable During Disruptions: Ensuring Remote Access to Library Resources, Redeploying Staff, and Offering Relevant Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Minakshi Sharma, Marie-Hélène Nicol, Amy Faulkner, Tanya Harron, Danielle Charron

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted access to health library services, spaces, staff and resources. We conducted a bilingual Canada-wide survey in early 2023 to document the experiences of library technicians, librarians, managers, and other health library staff. The objectives of the survey were to document: (1) services provided by health library staff; (2) staffing levels in health libraries; (3) redeployment of library staff to alternate roles or activities; (4) frequently used skills or competencies; (5) challenges faced and (6) lessons learned during the pandemic. Over 280 respondents provided insights on the role of library staff during the pandemic. During the pandemic, library staff provided services such as environmental scans, literature searches, instruction sessions, and alerts to information on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 so that hospital staff, public health staff or researchers could implement the most up to date evidence. Meanwhile, staffing levels at health libraries were variable between 2019-2022. In addition, survey data shows that 57% of respondents were redeployed to alternate roles or tasks and 22% of staff who were redeployed continued to perform library work simultaneously. Skills and competencies such as literature searching, project management, networking, or communication were used daily or weekly by over 40% of respondents. Many library staff identified challenges such as reduced or increased service requests, online service delivery, deployment to alternate roles and health concerns. Overall, health libraries ensured remote access to resources, redeployed staff to meet organizational priorities, and provided relevant services during the pandemic. Future considerations to improve service delivery are explored.

Library Services & Management
Charleswood A