The Library Without Walls

The Library Without Walls

Continuing to Meet Community Needs During COVID-19

In response to COVID-19, Washington and Lee University suspended in-person classes on March 13, 2020, and prepared to embark on an entirely new endeavor — virtual instruction. This shift barely hindered most library operations. Instead, it instigated a flurry of staff activity as the library received increased requests for traditional services and created new services to meet emerging demands.

The return to on-campus instruction in Fall 2020, did not prompt a return to business as usual. The library, like the entire university, altered policies and physical spaces to ensure the safety of our campus community.

While patrons usually think of libraries as physical spaces, the shift to virtual instruction reinforced the library’s boundless reach. The library is more than a building — in our case more than two buildings. It is a collection of skilled staff and faculty eager to meet patron needs, regardless of their location. Here is how four library units worked diligently to provide resources and services for students, faculty, staff and public patrons during a historically unique time.

Instruction & Research Services

Mary Abdoney, instruction coordinator & science librarian

In March 2020, the library scrambled to meet research needs as students returned to homes across the globe. Within weeks, we moved on-demand research support services online. To receive help with simple research questions, patrons were able to visit library.wlu.edu and ask a question through LibChat. Initially, librarians and trained student associates staffed the chat. During Fall term, our regular research help desk student associates took the reins, now fully staffing our LibChat service.

For more complex research questions, patrons may schedule research appointments with a librarian. Booking an appointment with a librarian is not novel; yet, the format of the meeting is new. Now most sessions occur over Zoom or Microsoft Teams. This allows librarians to quickly answer student questions at their point of need and facilitates screen sharing — helping librarians better identify stumbling blocks in the research process.

As classrooms bear occupancy caps to facilitate safe social distancing, many librarians spent the Spring and Fall terms zooming into a variety of courses. Giving virtual research tutorials not only accommodates room capacity for in-person classes, it meets the specific needs of virtual and hybridized courses.

While COVID-19 influenced many of our recent innovations, several will persist. For example, we now have the skill set to virtually provide instruction to future study abroad courses or teleconference with students engaged in off-site community-based learning.

Librarian Emily Cook “zooms” into a class to provide research instruction, communicating with oncampus participants and remote students simultaneously. Emily showcases a special guest requested specifically for this class, Cocoa the beagle.

Librarian Emily Cook “zooms” into a class to provide research instruction, communicating with on-campus participants and remote students simultaneously. Emily showcases a special guest requested specifically for this class, Cocoa the beagle.

Janet Ikeda

Access Services: Circulation Services, Interlibrary Loan and Building Access

Elizabeth Teaff, head Of Access Services

The University Library physically closed to faculty, staff, students and visitors from mid-March through mid-August. Despite this drastic change in building accessibility, Access Services ensured patrons obtained requested library materials.

Laura Hewett, Access Services supervisor, and Shana Shutler, Access Services assistant, worked inside the library while the physical buildings were closed. They scanned articles and book chapters for remote students and faculty, shipped physical material across the country for students and faculty, and provided contactless pick-up for local W&L members and residents of the greater Lexington area. Due to their hard work, W&L remained one of the few Virginia libraries with the capacity to scan materials for inter-library loan during the spring and summer months. We were also one of the few to provide physical material pick-up for our local patrons.

As fall approached, Access Services reviewed research produced by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in order to safely reopen Leyburn and Telford to current students, faculty and staff. The IMLS study informed the library’s quarantine method for checked out and returned materials. Webinars and meetings with Virginia libraries informed service changes, such a reduction in our operating hours and modifications to our food and drink policies. Additionally, we worked with University Facilities and Public Safety to develop local safety protocols for our physical spaces.

In August, we resumed our physical interlibrary loan services. Much of that month was spent creating and posting signage and moving furniture to create spaces that support physical distancing.

All of our intense labor and planning paid off when, on August 17, we welcomed students, faculty and staff back to our libraries. To create safe services for our users, the library added additional self-check-out stations in Leyburn and continued contactless library services with material pick-up. Read more about our COVID-19 adaptations and services on our library website.

While our buildings remain closed to those not officially affiliated with W&L, local residents can request physical materials by emailing titles and call numbers to library@wlu.edu.

Laura Hewett ensures physical library materials remain accessible to local residents.

Shana Shutler checks in a book that has finished its quarantine period.

Two students follow the library’s Fall 2020 protocols: wearing masks inside while remaining 6 feet apart.

Special Collections & Archives

Tom Camden ’76, head of Special Collections & Archives

The staff of Special Collections has spent nearly a decade breaking down potential barriers to access the rare and unique materials housed in within our collection. Although many previously perceived Special Collections as an elite, off-limits section of the library, it has experienced an explosion of traffic from students, faculty and the community at large in recent years. Our staff heartily embraces this broader service mission, experiencing the joy of discovery, along with our patrons.

2020 compelled us to creatively implement our public service mission while following social distancing guidelines and safety protocols. While we are temporarily prohibited from hosting large in-person classes or community presentations, virtual technologies allow us to share our treasures beyond the confines of the Boatwright Room. We have led virtual classes, socially distant in-person classes, and the occasional hybrid class with participants both in-person and online.

The most challenging aspect of our current situation lies in the inability to welcome those not officially affiliated with W&L into our reading room. We work hard to ensure this alteration to building access does not impact material access. We are busy, scanning one-of-a-kind items to provide digital surrogates for researchers. Sometimes, this results in more staff provided research support than what would occur in an in-person setting. Our reputation for efficient and effective public service remains well-known throughout the academic community and the greater Lexington community. We maintain that standard during these times due to enhanced flexibility and the commitment of our staff. Special Collections has been fully-staffed and on-site since August 10.

This experience clarified the importance of our digital presence. In many ways, we now reach a larger and more diverse audience through online exhibitions, subject specific webinars and social media. Ultimately, no virtual medium replaces the face-to-face engagement and the tactile experience of handling one-of-a-kind objects, particularly with our undergraduates. However, the creative reassessment of our operations as a research center proved to be a healthy and positive endeavor.

Seth McCormick-Goodhart navigates nineteenth-century newspapers to answer researchers’ questions.

Byron Faidley scans rare and one-of-a-kind material for independent researchers and classroom use.

Tom Camden ’76 showcases Special Collections materials for Professor Julia Hernández’s hybrid class.

Collection Services: Acquisitions, Cataloging, eResources and the Digital Archive

Julie Kane, head of Collection Services

Collection Services, the unit that purchases material, catalogs books, manages eResources, and maintains our Digital Archive, has worked diligently to provide materials for the W&L community—wherever community members are located. In the earliest days of the pandemic, print purchasing quickly ceased and we transitioned to an acquisition model that prioritized electronic resources. The shift to virtual learning brought an increased demand for ebooks and expensive streaming media, which required vigilance in monitoring a potentially precarious budget situation.

During the spring and early summer, as staff worked from home, we reconfigured job duties to ensure the continuation of essential functions: ordering, activating resources, paying bills, and communicating with each other and the Business Office. A staff retirement during the summer precipitated the reorganization of duties, prompting others to learn new tasks to ensure coverage of needed services.

As some returned to in-building work, print ordering resumed. We instituted changes in our processes, procedures and spaces to keep our staff and community members as safe as possible. Quarantining materials at each stage of processing helps us ensure safety and minimizes contact among staff members. Unfortunately, supply chain issues and safety procedures slow the time from order to fulfillment—but, even with these necessary delays, users receive both the physical and digital resources they need.

Many thanks go to Kaci Resau, our electronic resources librarian, who has shouldered the bulk of collections’ burdens during this time. Kudos are owed to Jamie Di Risio (see picture of her office workstation below), serials assistant, and Cricket Brittigan, library assistant in cataloging.

Highlighted in a recent Columns article, our Digital Scholarship Librarian Paula Kiser and Digital Services Manager Cindy Morton worked tirelessly, along with the Special Collections staff, on projects to capture and preserve documents and born digital artifacts relating to both the COVID pandemic and anti-racism efforts on campus. These dual herculean efforts will extend far into the future for researchers and students looking for information on the different ways in which our community met this moment.

Jamie Di Risio’s cat, Mr. Cat, looks on as she catalogs ebooks from her remote workspace.