EBLIDA & Covid-19

• EBLIDA decided to relaunch an investigation with a view to validating the new normals having been detected in the first post-Covid agenda report and to identifying the legacy left by library policies and trends set in place during the peak of the Covid-19 crisis. In May 2020 we were somehow optimistic and we thought that the Covid crisis would come to the end after Summer 2020. That has unfortunately not been the case. Now that Europe is seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, it is time to take stock of what took place in libraries during this terrible year and make an assessment of the state of the art of libraries in Europe.

In 2020, EBLIDA undertook a survey aimed at reviewing the state of libraries in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. This survey was updated in 2021.

At the end of the double survey, EBLIDA identifies five new normals being promoted within a European Library Agenda in the post-Covid-19 age:

• 1. A socially inclusive library;
• 2. Technologies are mutating and shaping libraries in new ways;
• 3. Uncharted economic territory: review the library budget composition;
• 4. Library governance at central and local levels;
• 5. Do not forget the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

The Report outlines a European library agenda in the post-Covid age along five new normals:

• Exponential social distancing: a well-connected two-meter library;
• Technologies are mutating and shaping libraries in new ways;
• Uncharted economic territory: review the library budget composition;
• Library governance at central and local levels;
• Do not forget the climate change opportunity and threat.