Continuity of Academic Library Services during the Pandemic: The University of Toronto Libraries’ Response

Abstract

The suspension of in-person services and loss of access to physical collections at the University of Toronto’s network of academic libraries has left more than 100,000 students, staff, and faculty with only remote library support available for their research. Leveraging and expanding existing online services and digital collections, and acquiring or building new research tools for scholars to deploy, are two approaches the University of Toronto Libraries’ staff have taken since the COVID-19 pandemic changed library operations. This paper describes the continuity of library services and collections access at the University of Toronto during the period of March, April, and May of 2020 and briefly considers how these services may evolve moving forward.