Impact of COVID-19 in Academic Libraries of Sikkim: A Study

The major outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) at the end of 2019 caused a huge impact globally in almost all the sectors. Even academic libraries experienced a major impact of this virus. Hence, this article aims to study how this virus affected people globally and its impact on four major areas of academic libraries, like library working hours, library services, preventive measures taken, and also the enhanced services provided by the academic libraries of Sikkim. The study also tries to identify the loophole that originated and further plans to cope with it in the future by the academic libraries of Sikkim. The data was collected through a structured questionnaire, followed by an interview, and distributed to the librarians of all the government degree colleges affiliated with Sikkim University, Sikkim. Purposive sampling has been executed during the study. The paper finds the major problem of library services during this pandemic is the unavailability of e-resources in any of the college libraries in Sikkim, thereby where they provided very few services to its users. The study also finds that the plan to have e-resources in the library has been taken up by a few of the libraries. Several recommendations have been made to help libraries provide services in the upcoming days, to tackle this kind of pandemic and other disasters in the library.