Teadusraamatukogude väärtus COVID-19 järgses maailmas

The Value of Academic Libraries in the Post-COVID-19 WorldThe debate on the value of academic libraries has been ongoing for the last few decades. The topic of value is mainly considered from two points of view—first, the value of the library as an institution for students who continue to visit it physically and second, the virtual access to information without a physical visit to the library is vital for researchers. Libraries are considered as a good place having a great symbolic value. On the one hand, this is a positive attitude, but at the same time, this understanding makes it difficult for libraries to change both from our point of view and from the users’ point of view, since libraries are seen within certain frameworks and with specific tasks. The value of research libraries in the eyes of the university is mainly determined by their activities and services. Traditionally, librarians have been in a passive role, and as a result, the academic staff has seen library as a “keeper of the books” which provides support services. This article uses results of various qualitative and quantitative studies, as well as materials reflected in scientific literature. The primary research includes studies from the LIBER, ALA, and Ithaka S+R U.S. libraries, conducted in 2020–2021. In addition, we also outline some opinions expressed in interviews with LIBER library directors.As research libraries heavily depend on the university and its strategic directions, a crisis such as COVID-19 clearly demonstrated how dependent libraries are on the hierarchy of university decision-making processes. When decisions within the university took time, this was also evident in libraries. As the crisis escalated, the greatest weakness of libraries was revealed: most of their services were concentrated around physical library buildings or collections. The libraries, who had focused more on digital services proved to be more successful. The crisis forced libraries to introduce several changes and, at the same time, highlighted some of their short-comings, thereby providing an opportunity to improve. The pandemic allowed libraries to rethink some of their practices and improve their value. Research during and after COVID-19 has shown that the role of libraries is undergoing a significant transformation in universities. Libraries need to get out of their physical buildings and passive roles. Virtual work processes, collections, and services which can be accessible to anyone and anywhere are becoming increasingly important. The keywords are speed, recovery capacity, and crisis management. The flexibility and resilience of libraries help prepare for the next crisis. The article is based on a presentation „Re-evaluating library’s value post-COVID-19” at the LIBER conference on July 6, 2023 in Budapest

Raamatukogu koostöö TÜ majandusteaduskonnaga

UT Library’s Cooperation with the Faculty of Economics of the University of TartuFor three years, the UT Library has cooperated with the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tartu to study the behaviour of users in the library. For all three years, the collaboration took place within the framework of a subject that introduces research and analysis methods in the economic and social sciences. In the first year (2020), it was an undergraduate subject, and in 2022 and 2023, it was already a Master’s subject. The aim of the cooperation is to offer students of the Faculty of Economics the opportunity to experiment with business anthropology, which helps to identify the natural behaviour of library users through observation accompanied by interviews. As part of the course, students form research groups and concentrate on specific research topics, i.e. the area in the library, where they have to find the answer to a specific question: what are the library visitors’ patterns of consumer behaviour? The 2020 survey took place in the spring semester when the COVID-19 crisis began in Estonia; the library was, therefore, first closed for a few weeks and then only partially open to visitors. Due to the crisis, it was not possible to conduct observations, and the students solved the task with interviews. That year, 304 library users were interviewed individually or in focus groups. The overall results for 2020 showed that relatively little was known about library services and facilities. Suggestions for improvement were made for services that already exist in the library. Following the suggestions for improvement outlined in the 2020 study, the library introduced several changes. Another study took place in 2022, this time carried out by Master’s students. Overall, 700 people were observed, and three participatory observations and two introspections were also carried out. Master’s students conducted 160 interviews. The library implemented some smaller and quickly achievable changes during the year after the research. The research projects for 2023 were carried out in eight groups, each of which had eight members. The topics covered included the visiting habits, the help-seeking experiences, guiding signs and pointers, the White Hall, places most preferred by the visitors, reading rooms, ways of conducting information search, and the lobby environment. The project submission deadline was the end of December 2023, and the results were presented in the library in early January 2024. The library has received valuable feedback on its services and its environment from a large number of users while, hopefully, the students have gained an exciting experience for the future and thus also found their way to the university library

Tartu Ülikooli raamatukogu – avatud teaduse lipulaev

The University of Tartu Library - the Flag-bearer of Open ScienceActivities of the University of Tartu Library in promoting open science were started with the introduction of the possibilities offered by open access (2009). During the recent decade, the library has become a leading open science activities-related institution in Estonia and a good partner for international organisations and projects. The Library has created a matrix management-based trans-departmental Open Science Work Group, which cooperates with other units within the university (Grant Office, the Centre for Ethics, ETAIS and HPC) and without (Ministry of Education and Research, Estonian Research Council,other universities).UT Library is a member of a number of international organisations engaged in open science activities, such as DataCite, RDA and COAR; the library is the OpenAIRE Estonian National Open Access Desk (NOAD). The library participates in many international projects (OpenAIRE, EOSC-Nordic, Enlight Rise). The main open science-related activities involve different ways of supporting the UT researchers. The library offers repositories for publishing research data and different publications, an open access publication platform, and possibilities for creating subject databases and using text analysis tools.Another important area of activities is the teaching of junior researchers and doctoral students. For this purpose, several e-courses on data management were created at the library. The most exhausting course „Research data management and publication” was developed in cooperation with the team of the data management platform PlutoF. This course was awarded the e-course quality label in 2020. Teaching of researchers is also the objective of international seminars held at the library once or twice ayear, inviting best specialists in their field from different areas.Open science is advertised and marketed via a number of different channels – the UT Library web page, and the DataCite Estonia Consortium’s web page for data centres, researchers and partner universities. The Estonian Open Science policy is still under development, but it would be good if its main information channel were the web page and logo of Open Science. Ideally, it could be the brand for all Estonian open science activities, known and used by all