COVID-19 response

Becker Library has made significant contributions to Washington University’s response to the coronavirus pandemic that started in the spring of 2020.

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, a virtual information services desk has carried out its usual assistance services for faculty, staff and students remotely via askbecker@wustl.edu.

Staff worked to enact a number of safety measures including in-library signage and procedures for quarantining materials.

SUPPORTING YOU IN MOVING TO VIRTUAL WORK AND LEARNING

Access to the library’s remote “proxy” access server was reconfigured so that any user with a WUSTL Key could access resources without needing the usual subscription. The technology team also coordinated the transition of staff computing needs from onsite to work from home during the campus closure. 

On behalf of the Office of Education, librarians identified and collected recommended practices for creating persistent links for library-subscribed resources in order to support the transition to distance-learning. 

Library staff also adopted virtual technologies to facilitate group or one-on-one instructional sessions on PubMed and EndNote.

CONNECTING YOU TO COVID-19 LITERATURE AND RESOURCES

A library-wide effort quickly produced a popular Guide to COVID-19 Resources for Physicians, Investigators and Consumers. In response to the heightened interest in preprints as a source of the most current research on COVID-19, librarians also created a Guide to Preprints to help researchers be better informed on guidelines for publishing preprints and providing information on available preprint servers for locating and posting the most current research findings.

Due to the pandemic, many publishers began granting libraries temporary complimentary access to online databases, e-journals and e-books in response to COVID-19. Becker Library arranged access to a number of additional databases to assist with online learning and instruction, including Bates’ Visual Guide to Physical Examination and AccessPhysiotherapy.

FACILITATING COVID-19 RESEARCH COLLABORATION

In collaboration with the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS), the Research Profiles support librarian created a group of COVID-19 researchers at the School of Medicine who were then tagged and organized together as a “research pool” for easier discovery by the research community and to help promote greater collaboration during the pandemic. 

 

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