University of Idaho’s library has provided online-only services since the COVID-19 pandemic led Idaho colleges to close campuses.
It’s unclear what the changes at the UI Library will look like long-term, but library administrators are considering how they can continue offering services online in the coming months.
The switch to online-only changed what resources students and faculty could access in the spring semester. Book lending was temporarily canceled. Quick help from librarians to find research materials moved from the reference desk to a virtual chatroom. E-book access was expanded as book publishers and vendors reduced or temporarily suspended prices.
COVID-19’s lingering impact is unclear, which makes planning difficult for UI. And plans for campus to be open in the fall are cautious with the everchanging COVID-19 pandemic. Planning is particularly tough for libraries because social distancing would require careful operation to avoid potential spread through books, public computers and public workspaces.
“We’re adapting as good as we can, and we’re hesitant to make any plans for the future because things are changing so fast,” Kristin Henrich, associate dean of the UI Library, said.
The UI Library is a member of Orbis Cascade Alliance, a consortium of 37 academic libraries in the Pacific Northwest founded in 2003. The Alliance is helping libraries in its network plan for a future that’s challenging to predict because of the pandemic and higher education budget issues.
The Alliance also helps UI faculty and staff access materials the UI Library doesn’t own through interlibrary loans for digital chapters of textbooks and digital academic journals; UI suspended physical interlibrary loans during the pandemic.
The deals many book vendors and publishers offered for books helped libraries adapt in the spring semester, but the potential need for more online resources next academic year makes it a Band-Aid solution.
“We’re taking advantage of that as much as we can, while being mindful that those deals aren’t consistent and, at some point, we might have to switch to paying for them and that might not be something we can afford,” Henrich said.
The Orbis Cascade Alliance is helping plan for fiscal issues like that.
The Alliance’s Executive Director, Kim Armstrong, said the collective group of libraries can “deliver more content, more cost-effectively” by helping libraries collectively purchase materials and share resources with each other. At a time when state government budgets are being slashed, Armstrong said minimizing costs is crucial.
She said the Alliance’s board of directors is “mindful that we’re heading into a funding reset period. It’s going to be somewhat like a previous recession we had in that many of the dollars we maybe had in budgets now are not going to be recovered.”
While Armstrong said nothing is finalized, as many universities aren’t sure if they’ll have in-person courses in the fall, she said the Alliance is considering what online content member libraries can buy together and how much money they can put toward electronic books, journals and streaming media.
For UI, that could mean changing the licenses it buys e-books under. Jylisa Doney, the social sciences reference librarian, said many of the e-book subscriptions the UI Library pays for are limited to only a few readers or one reader at a time. Unlimited licenses would provide more access, she said, but they’d come at a higher cost.
“Those things have different price points, so it’s a budget conversation,” Doney said. “But what we try to do is make the decisions that are best for our patrons.”
This fiscal year, which ends June 30, the library received a one-time budget cut of $547,878, Kim Salisbury, executive director of academic budgets at UI said. This fiscal year (FY21), the library will have its budget permanently cut by nearly $1.2 million.
Moves by many book publishers and platforms to temporarily adjust rules for resource sharing and libraries’ access to e-books are something Todd Campbell, the interlibrary loan supervisor, hopes will remain.
“Honestly, I don’t know what would happen. I would hope and I would like to see the small changes that have happened now continue, but I do realize that publishing is a business, so they have to balance that as well in changing their policies and changing their procedures,” Campbell said.
Henrich said she’s never had to plan with the contingencies COVID-19 created. Planning the unknown has been a little less straining, she said, because of the Vandal community’s response.
“I think everyone who’s had to make this decision would say they’ve aged many years from the uncertainty and the responsibility,” Henrich said. But, she added, “That’s part of the job, and we’re lucky to have a strong UI community, too, that’s been proactive in doing the right thing.”
Kyle Pfannenstiel can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @pfannyyy