Increase in electronic library services during the pandemic

The number of electronic books, academic e-journals, full-text articles, statistical data, conference papers, theses, reports, standards, and many other scientific publications have been increased within the scope of the Electronic Library services started in the distance education process after the interruption of formal education at Cyprus International University (CIU) and have been made available to the members for 24/7.

CIU Library Director, Gülten Sala Lay explained that they are trying to support students, academics and researchers with the university's rich digital library collection during the distance education process and continued: “we aim to guide our students to the digital platforms where current and scientific information is available to keep them away from the information stacks and information pollution on the Internet".

Lay drew attention to the point that social isolation due to the pandemic has changed all habits and the change in the process of obtaining information was affected in addition to education and training activities in all universities.

It was stated that libraries are working towards providing the highest efficiency to the user groups by developing their electronic resources in this process where universities continue to offer their educational activities via distance education opportunities.

Giving information about the distance education and library services process, Lay said: “the CIU Library has done many studies on the use of electronic resources before this process. We have organized training seminars and orientations to encourage our users to use electronic resources, to acquire and / or develop electronic skills”.

Lay stated that they have carried out the training as distance education in this process and "we also receive our users' questions and suggestions regarding the use of electronic resources or library services online and respond to their concerns within 24 hours".

Ogoh Stanley Nnamdi, a Ph.D. student from the CIU Faculty of Engineering, said that the university's library services provide students with many scientific publications 24/7 in the digital environment, “For this reason, we can easily and quickly carry out our projects and research in this process without any resource shortage”.