A Pandemic at the Library: Lessons From COVID-19 About Technology Needs for Remote Working During a Crisis

Introduction

In March 2020, institutions of higher education decided to switch to online instruction, sending their residential students off-campus and reducing their on-campus staffing levels. At Grinnell College, located in Central Iowa, communications concerning remote work began on March 6th, 2020 (Grinnell College Office of the President, 2020-03-06) (Greiner, 2020). The Grinnell College Libraries began their planning for various eventualities, either the campus remaining open or closing with online courses (Christel, 2020). On March 10th, 2020, the College announced that the students would leave campus and encouraged those at high-risk for infection to contact their respective administrators to help mitigate their risk for exposure (Grinnell College, 2020). For a short period, it was believed that the main library would remain open for those students who could not leave; however, it was soon clear that the Libraries would be closed to all except library personnel. On March 15th, 2020, employees of the College were informed that “anyone who travel[ed] outside of the state of Iowa” needed to self-quarantine and, if possible, work remotely for 14 days (Lukeheart, 2020). This was the first instance the Libraries needed to help an employee work remotely. Finally, on March 18th, 2020, Grinnell College asked non-essential staff to work remotely (Grinnell College Office of the President, 2020-03-17). That included the Libraries.

All the Libraries’ employees work at least one day per week on campus, relying on on-campus hardware and technology to do their jobs. Even those who had been given essential status would not be working on-campus daily, so they would need to be able to work remotely. The ability to work remotely is contingent on campus technology, infrastructure, hardware, and software. However, most library personnel did not have the appropriate technology to perform all their job duties. Each staff and faculty member at the Libraries had different technology needs, ranging from needing a laptop to needing help installing or accessing library software. Many of the exempt staff had their own portable computing devices (i.e. a laptop) provided by Grinnell College, though not all. But most of the non-exempt staff had desktop computers that could not be removed from campus; and some non-exempt staff even shared desktop computers with other staff members. It became instantly obvious that library faculty and staff needed assistance acquiring and setting up hardware and software for remote work.

The authors, Rebecca Ciota and Erika Barber, support the computing and technology needs at the Grinnell College Libraries. During the emerging global health crisis, when the library staff needed to evacuate the library building, Ciota found themself the sole person allowed on-site to support the needs of the library staff. Working with the campus IT department, they allocated hardware to staff and installed necessary software. After the transition to remote work, Barber assisted with remote support such as training, troubleshooting, creating virtual desktops, and performing installations.

The COVID-19 crisis required institutions and their libraries to act quickly to curtail the virus’s spread. For many libraries, this meant a complete transition from on-site work to remote work. The technology needs were immediate and large. And the authors believe that one can learn from what happened during the COVID-19 crisis in order to prepare better for the next crisis. Herein, the authors will discuss the lessons learned from helping 28 library staff and faculty work set up with technology for remote working, in order to be better prepared for the next emergency or disaster.