A Critical Partnership :
How Libraries Played a Key Role in COVID-19 Research & Response
By Natasha Veeser Director of Communications
As 2019 came to a close , the world was awakening to the troubling presence of COVID-19 . By the first months of 2020 , the United States felt the pressures of a virus that would soon turn lives upside down .
With healthcare workers scrambling to attend to spiking patient counts , researchers worked frantically behind the scenes trying to learn more . Countless hours were spent gathering every possible bit of literature and research that could lend itself to answers – with doctors often leaning on a quiet yet critical partner : libraries .
“ We have never experienced anything like this , with the volume of the pre-prints out there ,” says
Nasia Safdar , MD , Ph . D ., Medical Director of Infection Control at UW Hospital and a leader in UW Health ’ s response to COVID-19 . “ The assistance from the libraries in making this a manageable process was essential . We could not have done it without them .”
At UW – Madison ’ s Ebling Library , librarians frequently worked with Dr . Safdar ’ s research groups before the COVID-19 pandemic . Once COVID-19 research became the priority , the Libraries quickly answered the demand for research assistance .
“ There was so much information coming out from articles . It was like drinking from a fire hose ,”
Dr . Nasia Safdar , MD , Ph . D ., Medical Director of Infection Control , UW Hospital , Leader in UW Health ’ s COVID-19 response
explains Safdar . “ We needed to have a process for a focused review of articles so we could answer clinically relevant questions .”
Librarians conducted systematic reviews and collated literature to give researchers and doctors concrete guidance to move forward . As Dr . Safdar explains , the goal is to disseminate information through traditional means like journals and publications . The preprint process has opened
Opposite : A UW – Madison student dispenses viral transport media for COVID-19 test kits .
6 | Libraries Spring 2021