The academic library community is appreciating the ways library vendors and service providers have made electronic resources freely and openly available to support the acute global response to COVID-19 and students’ and faculty members’ necessary and unanticipated shift to temporarily remote teaching, learning, and research. All library resource and service providers are urged to continue to offer free and open access to as many scholarly resources as possible; to offer subscription renewals with no price increases; and to continue to work with the library community to minimise the impact of the current crisis on communities, including the significant inequities in access to resources that have been highlighted by the shift to remote work.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact communities across the world, and colleges and universities are facing disruptions through the upcoming academic year, as well as financial effects of the pandemic that will last into the next several years. Academic institutions and their libraries are planning for the unknown. Most with summer sessions will be online through the summer for academic programs. Most are uncertain as yet about what form the fall semester will take—whether classes are held in person to some extent or fully online, there will definitely be students attending remotely and faculty working remotely. A possible resurgence of the virus is anticipated and in the winter and spring if it follows similar paths to other known viruses. Remote access to research and scholarly content will remain critical for those in the communities, especially those working to develop responses and solutions to the effects of the pandemic.
All institutions are facing significant pandemic-related financial challenges. Colleges and universities have already incurred large unbudgeted expenditures this spring and summer to maintain support for their students at the same time that COVID-19 has diminished the main revenue streams for higher education. Enrolment levels for the upcoming academic year are uncertain as students and their families cope with the pandemic, and financial aid needs will be much more significant for the student bodies. For institutions with endowments, market declines and volatility mean that fewer dollars are available for the institutional operating budget. In this crisis, institutions need to recuperate pandemic costs by cutting budgets in ways that will affect the academic library budgets.
The vendor and service provider community can show its commitment to libraries and education by continuing to provide free access to e-resources and by holding off on any price increases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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