Impact of COVID-19 on libraries and its challenges towards library professionals in Assam

Abstract

Overview: In this crucial situation of COVID-19, most of the physical library systems were stuck due to maintaining the rules of social distancing and also help to overcome the spread of virus infection but now it is time to remind society of the importance of the library.
Objectives: The main objectives of the study were to discuss the various challenges and how library professionals are dealing with this situation and their roles towards society and also to know the types of resources and services provided by themand their responsibilities to serve a different group of the community like researcher scholars, students, academicians etc.
Purpose:The researcher has chosen the study to know the various roles and responsibilities of the library professions during the lockdown and the main purpose of the study was to know the library infrastructure and how they managed to provide services during the lockdown period.
Methodology:For the present study a simple random sampling method has been taken for collecting data from the library professionals and the library users through the questionnaire as data collection tools, and some sort of interview was also taken to verify the data.
Findings:96.66% replied that they have an internet connection in their library, 84.50% replied that their libraries have provided services during the lockdown, most frequent use of services through social sites, access to digital resources was the most common queries received from the user ends. WhatsApp and Facebook were the most used social sites and Google meet, Zoom has mostly used web tools during the lockdown period to disseminate the information.