Mind like Water: Flexibly Adapting to Serve Patrons in the Era of COVID-19

• DOI: 10.1080/02763869.2021.1873622
• Publication Date: 2021-02-24T16:48:20Z
• Authors: J. Michael Lindsay; David Petersen; Kelsey L. Grabeel; Alexandria C. Que...; Abagail Pujol; Martha Earl
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Libraries, Medical; Information Dissemination; SARS-CoV-2; Teleworking; 05 social sciences; Libraries, Digital; COVID-19; Middle Aged; Tennessee; 3. Good health; Librarians; Adaptation, Psychological; Humans; Female; 0509 other social sciences

The ability to be flexible and adapt quickly to changing circumstances is a crucial skill for librarians to develop in a world increasingly characterized by rapid change. It can take a crisis to learn how effective librarians have become in developing the needed adaptive behaviors, including a willingness to change workstyles, experiment with new technologies and readily move on from failed experiments. In this paper, librarians from the Preston Medical Library at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, prompted by the crisis of COVID-19, present their response. Beginning with a description of how services were provided prior to the pandemic, librarians detail their response in several key areas and show how they implemented new approaches to teaching, collaboration, and mutual support, working together to handle patron issues and pursue scholarly activities.