The Librarian Reserve Corps: An Emergency Response

Area of Science:

• Medical Librarianship
• Public Health Information Science
• Information Management

Background:

• The COVID-19 crisis created an urgent need for accessible public health information.
• Medical librarians recognized the critical role of information organization during health emergencies.
• The World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) required specialized information support.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a volunteer network of librarians to address the information demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• To provide comprehensive literature searching and indexing services for COVID-19 research.
• To support the World Health Organization's information dissemination efforts during the crisis.

Main Methods:

• Formation of the Librarian Reserve Corps (LRC) as a volunteer network.
• Librarians applied specialized skills in literature searching and indexing.
• Collaboration with the World Health Organization's GOARN for information distribution.

Main Results:

• The LRC successfully provided critical information services during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis.
• Comprehensive literature searching and indexing of COVID-19 research publications were conducted.
• The LRC's efforts facilitated the organization and accessibility of rapidly growing COVID-19 information.

Conclusions:

• Volunteer medical and health sciences librarians played a vital role in managing COVID-19 information.
• The LRC demonstrated the value of specialized information services in public health emergencies.
• The evolution of the LRC's work reflects the dynamic nature of scientific publishing during a pandemic.