Addressing the needs of the UP Manila academic community when offices and schools are locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic has been and still is a challenge to the University Library. To respond to this, the Library optimized its online services to the fullest extent possible by helping remote library users which include the faculty, students, staff, and medical practitioners with their library needs across various platforms, such as the University Library website, Facebook page, and library email.
The services that are being channeled through these platforms are:
Current Awareness – keeps the community well-informed and up-to-date through the new resources and services offered by the library.
Document Delivery – constituents can request for full-text articles and book chapters that are not available in the Library.
Reference and Information Service – a direct and personal assistance given to users in meeting their information needs.
As part of our social responsibility, we created a dedicated COVID-19 page in our website that offers updated electronic resources. It offers both local and international researches. This initiative has been noticed by some organizations across the globe such that the possibility of integrating their resources into this page is being explored. These are the content providers that gave us free trials of their available resources which can be used during this period: EBSCO, CE-Logic, LibTech, JoVE, and IGI Global.
The University Library also cares for our frontliners. To boost their morale and let them feel that they are not alone in this fight, an online poster showing some staff with a message expressing gratitude for their contributions in fighting this pandemic was made. Help was also extended to PhilCare employees in the form of funds for their basic needs. Additionally, the Library extended its support to the UP-PGH Bayanihan Na! Operations Center by lending three iMac computers for its use.
Alfred E. Dalmacio | Published in Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 10
