Medical librarians at the Welch Medical Library maintain a collection of LibGuides focused on serving the needs of the campus and global community. As the COVID-19 pandemic arose, the public was faced with an overload of information and misleading reports. Librarians at the Welch Medical Library quickly assembled a LibGuide to meet the needs of Hopkins researchers and healthcare workers. Resources were curated according to research resources, point-of-care resources, disease tracking/epidemiology, internal/Hopkins specific resources, and consumer health resources. Resources were chosen based on timeliness, authority, and usefulness to researchers or frontline healthcare workers. Use of the Covid-19 guide has been steady since its inception on March 12, 2020, receiving the bulk of the library's LibGuides traffic, with over 7,000 hits in a three-month period. The most popular pages were research resources and disease tracking. This case scenario demonstrates librarians' expertise and readiness to meet real-world demands in unprecedented times.
Carrie Price is a clinical informationist at the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University. She serves a number of clinical divisions and the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Katie Lobner is a clinical informationist at the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University. She serves a number of clinical divisions and the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Library Type: Medical Library
Demographic Served: Faculty, fellows, residents, nurses, staff and students of the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, and the Hospital System
Population Size: 35,000
Library Staff Size: 42
Plan for Fall 2020: Likely Online Only