6 May 2020

A Rise in the Use of the National Library‘s Remote Services During the Quarantine Period

After quarantine was declared, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania suspended physical servicing of users and entirely focused on providing remote services. Such a decision justified itself to a full extent: statistics shows that virtual visitors willingly embraced the possibilities to work, learn and spend meaningful leisure time. The demand for some services increased even manifold.

During the pandemic period, there was considerable increase in the demand of services provided by the interactive library ibiblioteka.lt. Since February alone, the borrowing of e-books increased by 3.3 times and in comparison with April of the last year, the use of e-publications increased more than fourfold.

The use of other electronic resources has also increased. Users of the portal of the virtual electronic heritage epaveldas.lt download digitized documents and high definition images as well search for relevant  information. The National Library subscribes to foreign databases and offers open access resources. During the quarantine period, visitors mostly use the database JSTOR Collections. Taylor&Francis SHH Library and Wiley Online Library are also popular. All these resources are available remotely for National Library users having a valid reader card.

Another significant aspect of the National Library‘s activity is organizing various events. Part of them were video-recorded at the Library‘s TV studio and published on the YouTube channel. The changed conditions determined the origination of new headings. Together with colleagues from other structural units, we built the series of live broadcasts for children „Handiwork for Homestayers“, initiated the series „Art Education Sessions“ and „Bibliotherapy from Home“ as well as organized book presentations and presentations on today‘s relevant issues. In cooperation with partners, we video-recorded lectures on issues related to psychology and healthy lifestyle as well as other issues.

Statistics show increase by more than 20 percent of the number of YouTube channel subscribers and now this number is 2410. During the quarantine period, we published almost twice more of video recordings than during the first months of this year before the quarantine and thrice more than during the same period in 2019. Accordingly, there was increase of the number of views. Before March 12 of this year, 31 339 views were observed and 100 940 views from March 13 until 5 May. It means that the watch count of the video materials increased more than fourfold in comparison with the same period of the previous year.

The National Library, after having opened its doors for visitors, invites to continue using the remote services. If you wish to go to the Library, please check out The Main User Service Information.

Infographic (PDF ›)