What Do You Do When the Library Is Closed? Measuring User Satisfaction with Library Collections and Services during COVID-19

ABSTRACT In March 2020, the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries (Libraries), which includes a main library and four branch locations, closed to the public and quickly shifted its services to support remote learning, instruction, and research in response to COVID-19. We fully transitioned services such as reference and research support to an online environment and pivoted collection development to primarily acquire e-resources. This was a dramatic change in operations that altered the way faculty and students interacted with the Libraries and we wanted to understand how these changes impacted our users. The authors collected and analyzed data about the use of the Libraries’ collections and services to understand user expectations during the pandemic, and measure user satisfaction with recent adjustments. The presentation and this paper summarize findings from various library data sources and survey results, and provide recommendations for prioritizing library services that best meet user expectations for the academic year 2021–22.