What is the place of the Library Space in health care? A literature review and survey of health care library experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Over the last 25 years, health library collections and working practices have shifted in response to an increasingly digital world. As a result, there is a need to examine the continuing role of physical library space in health care environments. There is also a need to consider changes made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic when health librarians found themselves providing essential information services from home, disconnected from physical libraries, at a time when health professionals urgently needed reliable and high-quality information. This study examined the impact of the pandemic and recent evidence about library space in health care settings. We explored the role of physical libraries in health care settings as we emerge from the pandemic into a new normal.

Current issues and status of mis/disinformation in the health library context: a rapid literature review

“…Current research in the health library context is limited to how medical/health sciences libraries responded to the COVID-19 health crisis (Yu & Mani, 2020), including health care library experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic that consider changes made in response to the pandemic when health librarians were providing essential information services from home and were disconnected from the physical library (Anderson & Ivacic-Ramljak, 2021); or the impact of COVID-19 on reference services provided by academic health sciences librarians to examine the scope of reference services, changes to reference work, and the range of reference questions that academic health sciences librarians received amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (Charbonneau & Vardell, 2022).…”