A New Report From ARL, CNI, EDUCAUSE “Crest or Trough? How Research Libraries Used Emerging Technologies to Survive the Pandemic, So Far”

From the Assoc. of Research Libraries (ARL):

Today the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), and EDUCAUSE released Crest or Trough? How Research Libraries Used Emerging Technologies to Survive the Pandemic, So Far by Scout Calvert, an ARL visiting program officer and data librarian at Michigan State University.

This is the final deliverable of the ARL, CNI, and EDUCAUSE joint initiative to advance research libraries’ impact in a world shaped by emerging technologies. This report returns to 11 participants in interviews conducted for the initiative, to find out how their perspectives have changed in the year and a half since the initiative began, given the disruption to research and learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In these new conversations, the interviewees retain optimism for the same transformative technologies discussed in earlier interviews, but they observe that the intense activity of the pandemic months has been largely related to adoption and refinement of existing technologies rather than innovating truly novel technological solutions to research and learning challenges.

The report is organized in three parts: first, reflections by the interviewees on how their libraries and universities have fared in the pandemic so far, and to what factors they attribute their successes. Six socio-technological thematic areas emerged from the conversations about changed expectations for the futures of technologies—these form the second section of the report. Finally, the report shares some factors to consider in technological adoption going forward.

Direct to Full Text Report (DOI: 10.29242/report.emergingtech2021.pandemic)

• Crest or Trough? How Research Libraries Used Emerging Technologies to Survive the Pandemic, So Far

Other Reports in this Series Include:

• Emerging Technologies for Research and Learning: Interviews with Experts
• Future Themes and Forecasts for Research Libraries and Emerging Technologies
• Mapping the Current Landscape of Research Library Engagement with Emerging Technologies in Research and Learning

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Interviews, Libraries, News, Reports