Emergency libraries: an affordable collection in pandemic times

Abstract

Introduction: The new coronavirus pandemic hit institutions of memory in 2020 and 2021, promoting the partial suspension of activities in libraries. Schools and universities, after adopting Emergency Remote Teaching, were deprived of access to vital collections for their activities. Objective: This work contributes to the establishment of the concept of Emergency Libraries, in line with the effort to fight the pandemic, in the sense of enabling access to a collection in times of exception. Methodology: After the synthesis of concepts related by literature review, we sought to highlight the possibilities, requirements and difficulties of actions that could characterize the implementation of an Emergency Library, seeking support in the empirical results of projects promoted at the State University of Londrina. Results: The experiments suggest the following characteristics for an Emergency Library: the adoption of digital materiality and its technical reproducibility as an implementation standard; the use of open licenses and works in the public domain as a priority in the constitution of collections; the care with the dependence on hegemonic digital platforms and the search for an objective legal mechanism that allows the digitization, storage and distribution of legacy content under restrictive copyrights. Conclusion: The exception regime, which closed libraries during the pandemic period, may also open possibilities for the circulation of their collections, giving rise to and enhancing their own reason for being. Emergency Libraries can offer an alternative affirmative response to the restrictions and scarcity that characterized the fight against the pandemic.