Our Year of Remote Reference: COVID19’s Impact on Reference Services and Librarians

Abstract

After a full year of providing fully remote library reference due to the COVID-19 pandemic campus closures, this exploratory study looks at reference practices of libraries, and librarian response to those practices, at a large, urban, public university. This article focuses on the impact COVID-19 had on reference services themselves, as well as the perceptions of those who provide them.

Keywords:

• Chat reference
• academic libraries
• Covid-19
• reference services
• remote reference