The Librarian Reserve Corps: An Emergency Response

Med Ref Serv Q. 2021 Jan-Mar;40(1):90-102. doi: 10.1080/02763869.2021.1873627.

Abstract

The Librarian Reserve Corps (LRC) is a volunteer network of medical, health sciences, and public health librarians who have responded to the urgent need for public health information during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. The LRC was first formed to assist with the indexing of daily publication lists distributed within the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). With the explosion of information related to COVID-19 beginning in December 2019, librarians have brought critical skills and experience to the response, providing comprehensive literature searching and indexing to COVID-19 research publications. The evolution of this effort follows the trajectory of scientific publication trends and developments related to COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; indexing; librarians; library services; public health surveillance.

MeSH terms

  • Abstracting and Indexing*
  • Adult
  • COVID-19*
  • Civil Defense / organization & administration*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Librarians / psychology*
  • Libraries, Digital / organization & administration*
  • Libraries, Digital / statistics & numerical data
  • Libraries, Medical / organization & administration*
  • Libraries, Medical / statistics & numerical data
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • United States
  • United States Public Health Service / organization & administration*
  • Volunteers / psychology*