The Effects of COVID-19 on Services and Operations of Public Libraries in North Carolina

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Last Modified
  • September 27, 2021
Creator
  • Everist, Mary Margaret
    • Affiliation: School of Information and Library Science
Abstract
  • This study was undertaken in order to find out how North Carolina public libraries responded to the COVID-19 crisis and how the services they provided changed as a result of the pandemic. A stratified random sample was taken from the list of all North Carolina library systems. A content analysis was done on the selected libraries, looking at website screen captures, social media posts, and news articles describing changes to library services due to the pandemic from a period of March 10, 2020 to March 31, 2021. These materials were analyzed to determine operational changes to libraries during the time period of the study and the subsequent service changes that were enacted and developed as a result. All of the libraries sampled closed for some period during the COVID-19 crisis, some of their own volition and some due to the governor’s stay-at-home order. The majority of libraries developed some variety of curbside service and produced virtual programming; over half experimented with other book services such as book bundles, book delivery, or book lockers. 71 percent of libraries in the study reopened their doors within six months of closing and 29 percent were closed as of the end of the study period, with 19 percent not having yet reopened to the public at all. Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic produced perhaps the single greatest disruption to library service in North Carolina ever. While many new services were implemented on a widespread basis by public libraries, libraries still experimented with other models of services to get books and other resources to the public.
Date of publication
Subject
DOI
Resource type
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Sturm, Brian
    • Affiliation: School of Information and Library Science
Degree
  • Master of Science in Library Science
Graduation year
  • 2021
Language

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details megeverist.pdf 2021-09-27 Public Download