









































Panel Discussions  83

Outreach and Promotion to 
Distance and Online Learners
Lessons from a Pandemic
Elizabeth Young Miller, Information Literacy and Seminary Liaison Librarian, 
Moravian University and Moravian Theological Seminary
Jude Morrissey, Access Services Librarian, Yale Divinity School
Deanna Roberts, Access Services and Reference Librarian, New Brunswick 
Theological Seminary
Patsy Yang, Digital Services Librarian, Gateway Seminary

ABSTRACT The Public Services Interest Group (PSIG) sponsored this panel 
presentation on outreach and promotion to distance and online learners. 
Panelists shared their pandemic experiences at Yale Divinity Library ( Jude 
Morrissey), the Burke Library at Columbia University (Deanna Roberts), the 
Gardner Sage Library at New Brunswick Seminary (Deanna Roberts), and 
Gateway Seminary (Patsy Yang). The moderator, Elizabeth Young Miller, 
posed eight questions to the panelists who took turns responding to the 
questions, filtering them through a pastoral care lens. Questions covered a 
range of topics, including creative approaches to online resources and ser-
vices, building community, communication and publicity, student workers 
and reopening policies, and how to plan for the future.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS



84  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

INTRODUCTION

Panelists Jude Morrissey, Deanna Roberts, and Patsy Yang all repre-
sent different institutions. They shared some common best practices 
as well as unique perspectives.

Morrissey: In 2020, Jude Morrissey joined the Yale Divinity Library 
in New Haven, Connecticut, as the Access Services Librarian. Yale 
Divinity Library is a unique unit of Yale University Library. While 
we generally follow Yale University Library’s policies and guidelines, 
there are times when exceptions are made to better serve our spe-
cific community of faculty, staff, students, and outside researchers, 
particularly as we are located inside the school itself and must follow 
their building access restrictions and regulations. Usually, we have 
11 library staff – 6 full-time librarians, 3 full-time paraprofessional 
staff, and 2 part-time paraprofessional staff. We also have around 
20 student staff during regular semesters. The school is comprised 
of Yale Divinity School, Andover Newton Seminary, and Berkeley Di-
vinity, all on one campus, the Quad. We have 600,000 bound volumes 
in Yale Divinity Library’s collection and access to approximately 2.4 
million e-books through Yale University Library. Until March of 2020, 
Yale Divinity School did not have online classes or remote students, 
so it was a big shift for us to have all resources and services online. 
Personally, my favorite new service is e-book course reserves. Having 
multiple or unlimited “seats” means several students can access the 
reserve text at the same time. Non-rivalrous resources are the best!

Roberts: The Gardner A. Sage Library maintains its position as the 
hub of theological research in the New Brunswick, New Jersey area. 
With a full-time enrollment of 81, the New Brunswick Theological 
Seminary (NBTS) seeks to extend access to theological education to 
those historically left out. With one main physical plant in New Jersey 
and a satellite campus at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, 
Sage Library supports students enrolled in certificate, master’s de-
gree, and doctor of ministry programs. The Sage Library has a staff 
of three full-time librarians and several part-time library assistants. 
Currently, Sage Library owns approximately 160,000 bound volumes 
on-site, has materials in two off-site storage facilities, and is expand-
ing access to electronic resources.

As the Access Services and Reference Librarian at Sage Library, 
Deanna Roberts seeks to maintain equitable access to all users, re-



Panel Discussions  85

gardless of their zip code. Prior to beginning this role, Deanna served 
as the Circulation and Reserves Assistant at the Burke Library at 
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS-NYC), one 
of 20 libraries within the larger Columbia University Libraries (CUL) 
system. As someone who was part of the “Great Resignation” of the 
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Deanna draws on her experiences 
from both institutions. Her favorite new service is scan-and-send 
electronic document delivery. 

Yang: Patsy Yang serves as the Digital Services Librarian at Gateway 
Seminary in Ontario, California. Our school has about 600 FTEs, but 
over 1,000 students. We have libraries at five campuses in four dif-
ferent states and all but one are staffed at least part-time. Our four 
full-time librarians are at the main campus in Ontario, along with 
two student workers. We had six full-time staff, four of which were 
librarians, before the pandemic started. However, we lost two to re-
tirement and new jobs; they have not been replaced, so we’ve been 
short for the whole pandemic. Our system has about 144,000 print 
and 40,000+ e-books. My favorite new service at our seminary, which 
we started in Fall 2021, is our online appointment calendar!

How did your library employ creative solutions, balancing access with 
legality?
Yang: Whenever possible, use online resources and go to the lim-
its for copyright permission. At Gateway Seminary, we used online 
resources whenever possible, including purchasing textbooks as e-
books to provide more access. We advertised our online reference 
resources on Facebook, Twitter, and our school’s weekly newsletter.

Additionally, at Gateway Seminary, we emailed PDFs of chapters 
of books and articles in reference resources we only had available 
in print, making this service available to all students while our states 
were closed down. Now this service is available to students living 
more than 10 miles away from one of our campuses. When dealing 
with this issue, we use the full provision of copyright law that allows 
you to make copies (PDFs) for professors to use in class. A few times 
we contacted an author about access to a title when it wasn’t avail-
able as an e-book, and most of the time they were willing to give us 
permission to make copies. Think outside the box.

Roberts: Regarding access during the pandemic, the staff at Columbia 
University Libraries (CUL) also pushed copyright limits as far as pos-



86  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

sible and expanded the collections eligible for the internal document 
delivery system, Scan and Deliver. Prior to the pandemic, items held 
on course reserves and within the reference collections were ineli-
gible for scan and deliver. Due to limited or no access to these items, 
staff at CUL updated policies around access and best practices to en-
able students and other users to access the materials they required. 
Before January 2022, Sage Library did not have a formal internal 
document delivery system, so one of the new services inspired by 
the pandemic has been the emergence of the scan-and-send service. 
One key learning from the pandemic, at both the Burke Library and 
at Sage Library, has been the importance of updating policies and 
equitably applying these policies to each demographic of user to en-
sure that every patron has the same level of opportunity. Developing 
equitable polices for the present and future is vital.

Morrissey: One of the guidelines implemented at Yale Divinity Library 
was to make choices that would work for the future, when at all pos-
sible, rather than just addressing the immediate need. For instance, 
purchasing e-book replacements for print texts was a necessary move 
when the amount copied to provide digital equivalence for course re-
serves would exceed copyright limitations and we could not access 
the whole text through other arrangements like HathiTrust. We were, 
however, willing to pay more for the e-book version if it had multiple 
or unlimited seats, since that would be more useful in the future. In 
fact, moving to e-book course reserves worked so well, particularly for 
access, that we made the decision permanent: whenever feasible, we 
will get multi-seat e-books rather than, or in addition to, print copies. 
We also installed self-check machines and procured a self-check app 
through Meescan. Patrons can install Meescan on their smartphones, 
and this app, along with the self-check machines, serve as contactless 
checkout methods, which will serve well in the future if the circ desk 
gets busy or a patron is uncomfortable with personal interactions 
for some reason. In addition, we began an extensive mail-to-address 
program; we intend to continue a version of that, since there may be 
several reasons a patron cannot make it to the library to pick up items.

How did your library employ creative solutions when offering online ori-
entation sessions?
Morrissey: The pandemic has prompted us all to think creatively, 
not only about access to resources, but also to delivery methods for 
such things as orientation sessions. One thing that is possible with 



Panel Discussions  87

on-site orientation sessions that is not with pre-recorded sessions is 
the ability for students to ask questions—an important aspect that 
needs replication. At Yale Divinity Library, we provided something 
close to that experience by expanding our Personal Librarian pro-
gram to help. Before the pandemic, we usually worked with emails 
and personal visits; it was not too onerous to move into the Zoom 
environment and meet with students one-on-one or in small groups. 
Actually, Zoom sessions had other benefits—like screen sharing and 
better scheduling options (which, of course, meant no need to make 
a special trip to the library if you are not planning to be on campus). 
I now routinely offer to meet with students in person or by Zoom, 
whichever is more convenient for them.

Yang: Advertising services to students and faculty is essential too. Most 
of Gateway’s campuses moved to a completely asynchronous online 
orientation during the pandemic, and that is ongoing. Student Affairs 
asked us for a page of important links and a short video of the library 
to include in that page. We continue to advertise our services in our 
school’s weekly email and are embedded in online and some in-per-
son courses that require a major research paper. When the pandemic 
started, all online and in-person courses were given a site in our learn-
ing management system (LMS) and that has continued after classes 
started meeting in person again. Utilizing the LMS makes it very easy 
to send an email out to everyone in a class in which we are embedded, 
and every email I send results in a 10–25% response from the students. 
We need to do more and are having discussions about that now.

Roberts: Having a library presence in the LMS and/or other required 
courses goes a long way with orienting students to the library’s ser-
vices and resources. Because Burke Library orientation sessions 
and the first-year library scavenger hunt were a required part of 
the first-year orientation experience at UTS-NYC prior to the pan-
demic, these sessions easily migrated to an entirely virtual format. 
Like many residential programs, UTS-NYC migrated from a fully in-
person program to fully virtual. Faculty, students, and staff that once 
used to see each other in the halls and navigate an entire campus 
without needing to ever go outside suddenly were forced off campus 
overnight. Supporting faculty and students as they pivoted to new 
ways of learning and teaching became the most critical part of in-
struction—reorientating the community of users in ways to utilize 
the library without being able to physically set foot inside. Because 



88  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

all course instruction, chapel worship opportunities, and commu-
nity building were happening in the Zoom-sphere, it was essential to 
make sure to tailor library orientation sessions to the specific needs 
of various user communities, by including only the most relevant 
tools and skills necessary for academic success.

How did your library employ creative solutions in fostering a sense of 
community for distance users?
Yang: Customizing information and meeting people where they are 
pave the way for building community. Take time to share at the be-
ginning of each webinar; this was a major concern I had at Gateway 
Seminary when the pandemic started. Using Zoom for webinars is a 
completely different experience than being in person. One question I 
ask at the beginning of each webinar is ‘how are you doing?’ If people 
reply “fine,” I say that I am not fine and take a minute to explain why. 
Then I ask the question again and take a few minutes to let people 
share their pandemic journey, the ups and downs, friends and fam-
ily concerns and losses, what is stressing them and how that affects 
their work, school, and family. We close that part of the webinar with 
prayer and then move into the subject at hand. I find when I do this, 
that students are much more attentive and willing to ask questions 
during the content of the webinar itself. Taking that time together 
helps them see that I am hurting just as they are, which gives them 
the freedom to ask questions or say that they don’t understand some-
thing. Showing that we are not just the librarian, but a living, breath-
ing, feeling human being gives them space to be honest and safe.

Morrissey: Many ways to connect with people online are available—
including social media, email, and (a personal favorite of mine at 
Yale Divinity Library at the time) discussion boards in the learning 
management system—but they do not work if you post and go. If 
someone reacts on a social media post or writes something on a dis-
cussion board, you need to respond, even if it is just to “like” their 
comment, so they know someone is listening. Watch for late-com-
ing questions on social media, too. It may be that someone sees and 
comments on a post from three weeks ago, for instance, but for that 
individual, it has just happened now and your response should be 
as quick as possible. The tone you take with answering online can 
make a difference, too. At Yale Divinity Library, I had more responses 
to personal librarian emails when we were off-site; I answered each 
one less formally than I would have if on-campus interactions were 



Panel Discussions  89

possible, and I made sure to add something personal when I could. 
We also had more personal social media posts—such as books from 
our own collections at home—and posts bringing folks in virtually, 
when we could be in the building, but they could not. For instance, 
we showed them the mountain of mail we had received while the 
library building was inaccessible.

Roberts: As important as it was to maintain connections with our 
users, staff within the CUL environment created opportunities for 
staff within the libraries to get to know one another outside the con-
text of being coworkers. Various library committees offered casual, 
virtual, social opportunities for people to get to know each other 
as whole persons. In Burke Library specifically, there were weekly 
full-staff check-ins on Zoom where the conversations had a little 
to do with library work—and updates to the ever-changing library 
landscape—and more to do with staff wellbeing. Similarly, outreach 
events to students at UTS-NYC and Columbia University would often 
have little or nothing to do with libraries. Due to travel restrictions in 
the Spring of 2021, CUL offered students an alternative Spring Break 
where staff hosted virtual escape rooms while others hosted oppor-
tunities to play Animal Crossing and Jackbox games.

How did/do you keep students and faculty “in the know” so that they are 
aware of how to get materials?
Morrissey: With all of these creative ideas and programs, how do 
you spread the word? First, you want to make sure all the necessary 
current information is in one central location—a single, bookmark-
able page or site—and then disseminate from there. Announcements 
about updates and changes are extremely important, but they should 
always link back to that central document. Yale University Library 
has several units, and there might be different rules for each. For 
instance, there was a period of time when all Yale faculty, staff, and 
students were allowed into the various libraries except for Divinity 
and one or two others, which were locked off only to their respec-
tive schools’ faculty, staff, and students. Regardless of the rules and 
exceptions, they all need to be in one place, and any unit-specific an-
nouncements and changes should still link back to the one central 
document. This practice should apply to physical and digital signage 
too. QR codes and links are your friend. When there are frequent up-
dates and changes, it will mean you do not need to print new signs 
every day, which is nice.



90  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

Yang: To echo Jude, keep your website and social media presence 
up to date. At Gateway Seminary, we added a COVID-19 webpage to 
our website and made changes in other policies, to make it easier 
for students and faculty to get the resources they needed. Then we 
advertised those changes on social media and the school’s weekly e-
letter. Every time a campus’s COVID-19 guidelines changed (five cam-
puses in four states), we updated the COVID-19 webpage and put the 
information out to the students at that campus and on social media, 
etc. Also, we emailed the students in the classes we were embedded 
in about how to get the books, chapters, and articles they needed.

Roberts: With the shuttering of doors came an importance to turn 
the library website into the virtual front door (see Christopher Cox, 
“Changed, Changed Utterly,” Inside Higher Ed, June 21, 2022, https://
www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/06/05/academic-libraries-
will-change-significant-ways-result-pandemic-opinion#.YrH-
hXeDmUoY.link). Constant and frequent updating of the library’s 
public online presence became even more important. CUL created a CO-
VID-19 alerts page for the library website that had information regard-
ing constantly changing library access and changes in services, as well 
as outside links to the Centers for Disease Control and Columbia’s Irvine 
Medical Center. Also, there was an internal staff FAQ that was created so 
that all staff, in every department, across all parts of the libraries would 
have centralized access to the most up-to-date information.

One of the major learnings from the pandemic is that any barrier 
to access equals a lack of engagement with materials. Whether it 
be a broken link within a LibGuide, frustrations around passwords 
and database access, a single-user licensed e-book, financial strain 
around purchasing required course materials, or lack of clarity and 
transparency around current library access and policies, if there is a 
difficult path, the user will stop seeking out the material. Especially 
for adult learners with family and job responsibilities, in addition to 
academic requirements, who may only have a small window of time 
to work on class assignments, if it is too difficult and time-consuming 
to access materials in an electronic format, then they will not engage 
with that material and their academic success will suffer.

What are best practices for training/onboarding and supporting stu-
dent workers during a pandemic?
Yang: Student workers can be invaluable to libraries and are of-
ten front-line workers, communicating important information. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/06/05/academic-libraries-will-change-significant-ways-result-pandemic-opinion#.YrHhXeDmUoY.link
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/06/05/academic-libraries-will-change-significant-ways-result-pandemic-opinion#.YrHhXeDmUoY.link
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/06/05/academic-libraries-will-change-significant-ways-result-pandemic-opinion#.YrHhXeDmUoY.link
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/06/05/academic-libraries-will-change-significant-ways-result-pandemic-opinion#.YrHhXeDmUoY.link


Panel Discussions  91

Therefore, they deserve special care and attention too. Be aware of 
students’ needs, personal and at work. The husband of one of our 
student workers at Gateway Seminary had to close down his café 
business during most of the pandemic because it was inside a mall, 
all of which were closed for at least a year in California. She was the 
sole provider for their family during this time and needed all the 
hours we could give her. Partly because of that and partly because 
our school does not allow part-time workers to work from home, she 
was at the library three to four days a week, all day. She was scan-
ning and emailing PDFs, packing books to mail to students and pre-
paring books for pickup, at the front door of the building for the first 
several months, and then at the library circulation desk. Thankfully, 
we were able to give her a lot of work hours! She had plenty to do 
since the librarians only came in one or two days a week, working 
from home the rest of the time. When I think about it now, I realize 
that we overused our student workers because they had to be in the 
library to get paid. Next time, we need to treat our student workers 
differently. Even though student workers will need to be in the li-
brary to get paid, we do not have to wear them out and break their 
spirits by leaving everything for them to do. They were as concerned 
about staying healthy as we were, yet they had no real choice about 
working. Be considerate of part-time and hourly staff during these 
times. Make sure they take their breaks, encourage them to refresh 
themselves, and be considerate of the people working with and for 
you who do not have the same workplace flexibility as you do.

Roberts: COVID-19 was and continues to be a moving target that has 
required constant policy updates and the restructuring of best prac-
tices. In all times, but especially during a traumatic global event such 
as a pandemic, it is important to get to know your student workers 
in an individualized and personal way. Managing student employ-
ees with a one-size-fits-all model and in a generalized way does a 
disservice to both the on-the-job learning of the student worker and 
the service workflows within the library. Because the changes to ac-
cess policies and service best practices were constant at Burke, mak-
ing sure to update your part-time student workforce in the unique 
ways that each individual person required became an essential 
part of being a manager. Some student workers responded better 
to in-person verbal instruction in a socially distanced environment, 
while some responded better to written instructions in either email 
or text-based formats.



92  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

Flexibility also became a central feature of working alongside 
student staff. At Burke prior to COVID-19, the sick policy for student 
workers was that they were expected to be at work unless they were 
vomiting or running a fever. During a global health crisis, this policy 
would not stand. It was necessary to re-evaluate this expectation and 
make sure that our student employees knew that their health was 
the most important thing.

Morrissey: Even before the pandemic locked us all out of the building 
at Yale Divinity Library, I was working on moving student staff train-
ing, management, and support into our learning management system. 
During the following months, it became a hub of communication for 
the scattered student staff, too. While they could not work on campus, 
I could assign student staff to help me with creating and evaluating 
that virtual space, which was essential for the finished product. The 
LMS “course” served a dual purpose in becoming a conversation 
space—the discussion boards were used for weekly announcements 
and check-ins to see how everyone was doing and to share with each 
other tips for handling stress or making Zoom classes work. While 
student staff were off-site, they could learn what they would need 
to know when on-site work became an option again, and they had a 
handy way to review that information when they were able to come 
into the library building again. We also used the time to review and re-
vamp the student staff employment procedures—including position 
advertisements, the application process, and interview questions—to 
be more inclusive and student-focused. For instance, we began asking 
less about their job experience, which did not have any real impact 
on their employment with us, and more about their interests; in this 
way, we can make personal connections early and gather ideas for, 
as an example, displays stemming directly from student interests.

How can equity and justice be established with regard to staffing and 
reopening?
Morrissey: Student workers often need flexibility, as do other library 
employees. At Yale Divinity Library, I was a member of the task force 
responsible for creating guidelines for plans for reopening all the 
Yale University Library units. One important idea guiding us was par-
ticularization. Each unit had unique needs and circumstances that 
required creating general plans and policies that could be broken 
down and adapted into specific listed implementations and excep-
tions; the same was true for individual circumstances. You cannot 



Panel Discussions  93

bring equity or justice by simply handing down one policy and not 
allowing for reasonable exceptions, nor by handling exceptions as 
they come up—someone will be left out or treated differently who 
should not be. Additionally, there are experts who can provide the 
metrics you need to start considering these exceptions and building 
equitable policies and procedures so you are not being arbitrary. The 
CDC guidelines, for instance, were useful for the process of creating 
policies governing quarantining and reopening. We also worked very 
closely with our Human Resources colleagues to detail how remote 
work would be handled for those who had underlying medical condi-
tions or other legitimate reasons to not work on-site. While you will 
not catch every special case, you can try; and you can particularize 
how you will handle cases that do not get caught, too.

Yang: Sharing responsibilities is crucial. During a pandemic or other 
emergency, all library staff need to work together instead of focusing 
only on their own area of expertise—that means sharing responsi-
bilities for areas that you normally do not deal with. When the librar-
ians (three of us at Gateway Seminary) were in the library during 
the pandemic, we helped pull books, scan the PDFs, send PDF emails, 
mail books, and prepare and run downstairs with pickup bags. I 
could not even think about writing and responding to embedded li-
brarian emails, meeting with students via Zoom or working on the 
website when on campus. One student worker and one staff mem-
ber could barely keep up with all the requests coming in for PDFs, 
books to mail, and books to be picked up. Even after we reopened 
partially, we helped wipe down tables and computers that students 
had used. While we could not let the student workers work from 
home, at least we could share their heavy responsibilities, do prep 
work for them before they came in and make sure that they got their 
full lunch breaks. Spending some time checking in with the student 
workers each day we were on campus helped as well.

Roberts: No matter the size of the institution or the library, depart-
mental silo-ing was the standard practice. This status quo way of op-
erating proved to be hazardous to the ability of Columbia University 
Library staff to meet the expectations of our users during the pan-
demic. No matter the department or job description one had prior to 
COVID-19, when the libraries were finally able to re-open to staff and 
begin circulation services in July 2020, everyone was part of access 
services. The increase in the volume of scanning and the demand 



94  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

for curbside pickup meant that everyone across all library depart-
ments needed to pitch in. The big takeaway: stop departmental silo-
ing and create internal cross-departmental training for your staff. 
Just because a staff member works in an area of the library directly 
related to access, does not mean that these staff members should be 
the only ones required on-site. Requiring only those with access ser-
vices jobs to be on-site and allowing those who have other job titles 
or descriptions the comfort of working from home is not equitable.

How do you get students back in the library?
Morrissey: Once staff are back on-site, considering how to get stu-
dents back in the library seems like a logical next step. If students are 
already around, which ours are at Yale Divinity School, the question 
becomes: What do your students need to feel welcome in the library 
building? Every community will have different needs, and you need 
to figure out what specific needs your community has. I talked to 
students who were coming into the building to find out what they 
needed or heard that their classmates needed, and three trends be-
came clear: connection, stress relief, and safety. I then went to work 
to address those needs. In order to create connection, I began by 
making connection outside the library—by leaving the library. I took 
Greek classes and started a Greek reading group. Also, I went where 
the students were going—chapel services and student lunches, for 
instance—and sat down with students I did not recognize to talk to 
them about their interests and let them know the library (and librar-
ians) would love to help them. You can also go without going. Yale 
Divinity School made up gift bags to welcome back all students, new 
and returning. Yale Divinity Library contributed wallet clings; stu-
dents could affix them to their smartphones to hold their IDs (which 
commonly get lost), and it served as a reminder that Yale Divinity 
Library was there. To help with stress relief, I began putting out fun, 
fidget-type things students could take home (like squishy mochis, 
pull-apart erasers, and stickers), as well as contemplative things 
(such as a tabletop labyrinth, prayer beads, and coloring bookmarks). 
In order to encourage a feeling of safety, we made supplies available, 
even when they were no longer required—hand sanitizing stations 
are still available, and masks can be found at the circulation desk.

Yang: Communicating and providing a safe space for students encour-
ages students to return to the library building. Again, at Gateway Semi-
nary, we put this out via all of our communication channels, updated 



Panel Discussions  95

our COVID-19 webpage, and explained new processes. Students appre-
ciated that we were providing a safe place to study—especially those 
who lived in student housing with young children! Explaining our 
reasoning for a sign-in and sign-out process, so we could sanitize study 
tables and computer peripherals when they were vacated, helped a lot. 
We also started providing ear plugs, as some students were attending 
a remote-access-only class in the library. Distributing ear plugs helped 
students who were there to study. Each time we opened up a new area, 
allowing people to browse the stacks and pull books for themselves, 
additional carrels in a different location, or personal study rooms, 
we publicized that information. Publicity worked for everything ex-
cept our group study rooms, which we opened up mid-semester this 
spring. Our students were not ready to be in a relatively small room 
with someone else yet. Hopefully by the fall this will change.

Roberts: Having a cohort of students that were taught how to use the 
library and check out resources without physically being inside the 
library requires staff to rethink what “in the library” means. Your 
library website needs to be as friendly and welcoming as your physi-
cal front door.

For libraries that may have less of their “pre-pandemic” popu-
lations inside the library and have new folks entering the space, it 
might be time to lean into these new populations of users and resist 
the urge to see them as “the other,” or “not part of the community we 
are meant to serve.” Sage Library not only serves the faculty, staff, 
and students at NBTS but also serves the Rutgers University popu-
lation, local clergy, and members of the public. Leaning into these 
new folks could very well create new pathways for people to enter 
your institution. Also, it might be time to disturb the “traditional” 
library image and create new outreach events that go against what 
a library usually looks like. At Sage Library, we will be starting a 
weekly Dance Breaks with Deanna stressbuster event in the fall and 
starting a library TikTok account to try and reach a potential new 
library user population.

How can you make contingency/what-if plans for the future?
Morrissey: Learning from the pandemic, in order to be proactive 
rather than reactive in the future is important. Prior experiences 
helped navigate the pandemic at Yale Divinity School. My entry into 
librarianship was through Project Recovery at Louisiana State Uni-
versity, which was created to assist with recovery from Hurricanes 



96  aTla 2022 PRoceeDinGs

Katrina and Rita. My exposure to response and recovery in that cri-
sis helped me think about response and recovery to the pandemic 
at Yale Divinity Library. While I emphasized particularizing your 
policies previously, I would now emphasize that you can and should 
generalize your plans. Many kinds of crises exist, and the same types 
of responses work for many—long-term off-site response would be 
generally the same whether you are responding to a pandemic or 
a flood, for instance. You can more easily particularize to specific 
crises using a general plan as a backbone. Documenting everything 
you did is essential; noting both what works—so you know to do that 
again—but also your failures. If something did not work, you need 
to remember and consider why, so you do not repeat that measure.

Roberts: With a record number of people leaving former jobs and 
starting new ones (Deanna included), offboarding and onboarding 
are perhaps now more important than they were in the past. Creating 
robust internal practices to make sure that folks do not leave with all 
the institutional knowledge necessary to be successful in their role 
is critical. Offboarding and onboarding also serve the dual purpose 
of preparing the person taking over the tasks of the job during the 
hiring process that will enable services to continue.

Creating a granularized processing guide is never a bad thing. Pro-
cessing guides can prepare people for success. The feeling of being 
dropped into the ocean without a flotation device is never enjoyable.

While services and practices are constantly evolving in libraries 
and librarianship, a solid foundation with documentation that is cur-
rent and up to date can go a long way. As we all have learned from 
the pandemic, reality can shift on a dime, so do not delay in creat-
ing the necessary documentation to not only enable current staff to 
be successful in their roles, but to also ensure that anyone new can 
step in with confidence.

Yang: Be prepared because staffing changes and disasters will hap-
pen again. At Gateway Seminary, we lost two librarians just before 
the pandemic started. One retired and the other took a job at a dif-
ferent academic library. We assumed that we would hire new people 
within a few months, and then the pandemic hit, and everyone’s bud-
get was frozen. We still have not replaced those positions!

In January 2020, I started getting nervous about COVID-19 and 
finally asked our library director if we could meet as a team and de-
velop some contingency plans in case we got closed down. Thank-



Panel Discussions  97

fully that gave us something to work with when California closed 
down a few days later.

Do not think that this is not going to happen again in your library! 
We do not know if it will be a pandemic, hurricane, tornado, earth-
quake, fire, or someone dying on the job, which happened to one of 
our faculty members at Gateway Seminary during the pandemic. 
One thing I learned from this pandemic is that we do not know what 
is going to happen tomorrow.

Take time to talk with your staff about what worked well and what 
did not during the pandemic. Rewrite how you would handle things 
if there was another pandemic or some other catastrophe.

Spend the next few months creating a broad contingency plan 
for unexpected events. Do not take a year to do it, because it may 
never get finished. Make it lean, mean, and gritty if you must, but do 
it. Gateway Seminary was blessed in that we already had an online 
program, so moving all classes to that interface was not overwhelm-
ing. For schools that were totally in-person with residential students, 
the pandemic was terrifying! Be prepared for the next disaster, even 
if it does not happen until after you retire or leave your current po-
sition. Do not let someone new to the library have to deal with a di-
saster with no contingency plans!

CONCLUSION

The COVID-19 global pandemic has served as a learning experience 
for many librarians. While each panelist’s experiences are unique, 
some common themes emerged. For example, some electronic re-
sources and services are here to stay, such as e-books and legal scan-
ning. Mailing materials to patrons will remain too. Embedded li-
brarianship, genuine listening, and creating personal connections 
are important for outreach. Maintaining open channels of commu-
nication, as well as regularly updating websites and keeping links 
current, is vital, especially as policies change. Speaking of policies, it 
is crucial to have equitable polices both now and for the future. Flex-
ibility and teamwork are key to the success of an organization. Creat-
ing safe and welcoming libraries will encourage patrons to return to 
the physical library. Last, but not least, disaster plans and documen-
tation will help us weather the next storm, whatever that may be.


