Post-Office Manager (Library Service), Competition Commission of India, Government of India.
Abstract
Many people think of libraries as physical buildings to access documents, journals, and manuscripts; however, over the past few
decades, libraries have been rapidly evolving beyond the physical, becoming powerful digital and virtual institutions, working significantly
with the tangible library concept. The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown has pushed normal life out of gear, and the library
professionals understood that things were changing. Aiming this paradigm shift of library services and activities into the ‘new normal’, many
librarians and information professionals across the world have found innovative ways in library services to serve the users in an effective way.
In this paper, we identify and evaluate new normal library services and innovative resources and management methods used by the librarians
and information professionals during the lockdown to beat the lockdown blues. We explore how library professionals were working constantly
on finding ways to provide access to people in need of knowledge, while keeping them safe, how libraries were transforming their activities and
services into the ‘new normal’, and how libraries kept the lock, down in lockdown.
Keywords: Lockdown, Library, Information Services, Innovative Services, Librarian, Mobile Services, COVID-19, Pandemic
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