Professional Connections During the Pandemic: Building and Expanding Social Networks in the Context of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Librarianship Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic has crystallized the idea of how inter-dependent we all are while simultaneously creating conditions that forced us to be isolated. Libraries across the world responded quickly to prevent further spread of the disease by offering digital collections and online services. Online reference and information services were already available in addition to in-person services, so more complete transition to chat, video, and research consultations was mostly straightforward. However, collection development, liaison, and subject specialist librarians had to swiftly find creative ways to locate information to respond meaningfully to specialized research requests from faculty, students, and researchers keeping in mind that users were unable to consult physical collections or travel for research purposes. Lockdown conditions in several nations across Asia, Africa and the Middle East caused new challenges for reference, research, publishing, and delivery of information. Presenters in this panel will share their unique experiences of how they coped with pandemic related research challenges, transformed, and expanded their professional and social networks to assist a variety of users.