ACRL Webinar: From the Other Side of the Pond: How US & UK University Libraries Can Learn From Each Other

Last year, academic libraries across the world were blindsided by the global pandemic. Lockdowns forced physical spaces to shut down and drove libraries to adopt digital content strategies rapidly. Yet, in the middle of this challenging time, many libraries found innovative ways to implement digital content and transform it to fill their students’ needs.

Historically, academic libraries in the US and UK have served a different purpose at their institutions and have developed different strengths in their abilities to serve their students. This led to different responses during lockdowns, but librarians in both sectors responded to the challenges they faced successfully.

US & UK Librarians could benefit from transatlantic information sharing of these responses, as many of the successful strategies from one country could be easily adapted for the other. This conversation will bring together librarians from both US and UK college libraries to discuss their recent innovations and how they can implement these strategies in their country. Topics will include:

• Differences between the US & UK academic libraries
• How these differences create learning opportunities for librarians
• How libraries have responded to the pandemic lockdown to make content more accessible for students
• Which of the short term solutions they’ve implemented they will continue to rely on once students are back on campus
• The future of the academic library in each sector in a digital-first world