As the UBC community transitions online courses and a period of remote work due to the COVID-19 outbreak, UBC librarians and library staff have been working to ensure that students, faculty, and staff are getting the support they need to continue their research, teaching and learning while physical locations are closed.
Increase in demand for support from subject librarians
UBC subject librarians, who are available via email and for online consultations, have seen an increase in demand for support. For Bianca Chui, a UBC History honours student in her third year, Japanese Studies Librarian, Tomoko Kitayama Yen was particularly helpful in helping to find resources for research, “Librarians are like wizards in finding information – I was struggling to do research on a project and Tomoko was so helpful in helping me to comb one of the databases. Librarians have also helped answer my questions about returning books during this time and about resources available for streaming through the AskAway chat app and I am very grateful to them for their help.”
Librarians supporting students, faculty and staff in the Medical and Allied Health Sciences are seeing an increase in demand for their expertise as researchers move away from lab or practice-based research to systematic and literature reviews. Librarians are also working to provide asynchronous and synchronous lectures to support research courses which have been moved ahead in the academic year.
Providing timely support to make course materials available online
As courses transition online, the library is providing support in making course materials available through the Library Online Course Reserves system, which is integrated with Canvas, ensuring appropriate copyright considerations and licensing permissions.
Dr. Kim Snowden, Instructor at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice utilized library support while transitioning her classes online. “I had to scramble to find readings that would normally be found in a course pack and to find online media to stream. The library has been so fast in helping me get those materials online and providing guidance about what I can do in terms of copyright, which can be a minefield.” Dr. Snowden is also exploring alternative Open Access options for course materials, “Erin Fields (Liaison Librarian and Flexible Learning Coordinator) has helped me to think a little differently about accessibility and pivoting into blended learning in my classes. The support has been enormously helpful and I don’t think I could function without the upkeep that is happening behind the scenes at the library to ensure everything runs smoothly.”
Transitioning to online programming
Both the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication and the Research Commons are now offering online programming, from one-on-one consultations to workshops and webinars. “We are seeing a huge surge in attendance in our online workshops,” says Eugene Barsky, Head, Research Commons. “We have gone from an average of about 10 attendees per workshop to about 60.” UBC students and researchers can take advantage of workshops on developing foundational digital and computer literacy skills to mastering Data Analysis and management software tools.
The Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication continues to offer online one-on-one writing consultations and workshops and has launched two new online writing communities to help mitigate social isolation and help the UBC community stay motivated and connected. Every week, students, researchers and faculty gather for a few hours to write alone—together.
Increase in demand for web archiving and deposits into cIRcle
As information on the COVID-19 situation floods our online environment, librarians in Digital Initiatives are working with researchers to identify sources of web content that are important to retain for research purposes. This includes health, news, and policy information for communities throughout British Columbia as well as information specific to the UBC community.
There has also been a significant increase in requests to deposit material into cIRcle, UBC’s digital repository for research and teaching materials. For, Dr. Benjamin Cheung a Lecturer at UBC’s Department of Psychology and faculty supervisor to the Psychology Student Association’s Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference, cIRcle has allowed him to help students showcase their research during this unprecedented time. “PURC is a major annual event and features the work of almost 100 students,” he explains, “We’re immensely proud of all the work they have done and wanted to find a way to showcase it. Many of them are applying for grad school and so cancelling the physical conference meant that some presenters were concerned about its implications for listing the event on their CV.”
Cheung reached out to his subject librarian Sheryl Adams and connected with Tara Stephen-Kyte, Digital Repository Librarian who facilitated the depositing into cIRcle. “Making the research available through cIRcle means that it has a DOI (Digital object identifier) and this allows students to include it on a CV so that adjudicators are able to access and evaluate it,” says Cheung who plans to incorporate this as part of PURC moving forward, “Without Sheryl and Tara’s guidance, there is no way I or the PSA would have figured this out on our own.”
Working to supplement the library’s robust electronic collections
While physical branches are temporarily closed, making the print collection inaccessible, the library is working to source electronic versions of print materials for teaching and research to supplement its already robust e-collections. “We have been moving towards an e-preferred model for ebooks since 2015 and have been at the forefront in finding workable solutions with publishers,” says Ellen George, Humanities and Social Sciences/Collections (Monographs) and Acquisitions Librarian. “We purchase large e-book packages from some publishers and with others use an Evidence-Based Acquisitions (EBA) demand or patron driven acquisition model which provides access to a deep collection of content and allows us to purchase e-books based on usage data.” The EBA model also enables libraries more control over and knowledge of anticipated costs. “This approach helps us better forecast and plan our budgets,” says Kat McGrath, Renewals & Collections Librarian, “It has also helped us maintain a balance between acquiring e-journals and monographs so that our collections are balanced and cross-disciplinary.”
“The Library has already been investing for some time in many of the tools, resources and services that are helping support the transition to online teaching and learning,” says Dr. Susan E. Parker, University Librarian, “The past weeks have demonstrated how university libraries are prepared to flex in order to support student, faculty and staff in their work during this challenging time.”
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This is the first story in a series about how UBC Library has been supporting the UBC community during the COVID-19 outbreak. Read the second and third parts in this series.
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