This is unacceptable. Is there a local college library that she can borrow the books from or is her college library connected via a library loan program?
Yes, of course her college participates in an ILL program, but this year the system is not doing physical book loans. Are other schools whose entire study body is remote doing that? It would be pretty complicated.
The source is not available from her state library system which includes a few institutions of higher education.
What D’s professor said when D expressed her concern about this:
“I know that the library is working hard to make as much of our collections available digitally as possible, but it is true that some sources will simply be off limits this semester. You are not alone in this reality, anyone doing research with archival sources is on hold right now. Frankly, most research of any kind is on hold! So, don’t worry too much about that, it is a reality of our time and graduate schools and employers are fully aware of this.”
I certainly hope the last statement is true.
Research materials aren’t fully digitzed, but the catalogs increasingly are, so it’s quite possible to search for and locate materials, order them, and have them sent to the student’s university library for pick-up by appointment. Librarians don’t have to have much, if any, physical contact with library patrons for this to happen. People can be allowed into archive depositories by appointment alone with a mask on (or the ordered materials can be brought out for them). Maybe these things aren’t happening yet but they can happen and probably should.
@TheGFG a lot of research that depends on fieldwork and travel is on hold. Also, many faculty have had to divert almost all their time and energy into developing online teaching materials, so they haven’t had the time to do research. Conferences have been cancelled or postponed, so people haven’t been working on papers. So it’s true that the pandemic has had a big impact on research productivity for everyone.
I totally believe this is true, @hopedaisy . What I don’t understand is the rationale. If it’s okay-ish if young people get covid because they don’t typically get very sick (putting aside the lack of long term information for the moment), and we know they can spread it pre/asymptomatically, what do parents and grandparents think is going to protect them from infection? Is it just a “I’m tired of this” attitude? Or something else?
Hope College updates its dashboard every Monday, and also sends out an email update from Campus Health at least weekly, usually on Fridays. They just changed the format of the dashboard to separate out results of diagnostic testing from surveillance testing. I think a big reason they did that the blended rate was creeping up over 2% and they wanted to show that the surveillance rate is 1.6%. The dashboard doesn’t show how many are in quarantine, but last week’s email said that number was 74 and that they still have “plenty of room” for more quarantine if needed. https://hope.edu/coronavirus/covid-dashboard.html
Gettysburg College just announced that they are “de-densifying” the campus by sending away everyone but first years, transfers, and international students. Students remaining on campus are no longer quarantined. Everyone else is going to remote instruction.
Some people months ago decided that “COVID-19 is no worse than the flu” and/or “there is no hope to control it, so we should get back to normal to save the economy/etc.” and/or “we should let it go through the population and get to herd immunity”.
But then didn’t some residential colleges deal with the Thanksgiving holiday issue by having post-Thanksgiving class time and final exams remotely, so that students do not come back for the few weeks from Thanksgiving until the end of fall term?
However, a lot of traffic in university libraries is their use as study rooms, not because students are looking for or reading the books there.
It may be possible for university libraries to open in a limited fashion to allow students to borrow books (as others have described) with minimal risk to the students or library staff (far lower than the risks in the grocery store).
@ucbalumnus Definitely. But I thought people would be more inclined to self-preservation tendencies when it went from abstract to concrete and grandma was sitting across the table eating turkey and sucking up COVID virus. Guess I was wrong.
The holidays are going to be challenging times for many people. Whether college students are coming home or not, at risk people (like many grandmas) should not be venturing outside their homes for Thanksgiving dinner, or hosting the meal.
If grandma lives at the incoming college students home, as several posters have already noted, people are going to have to figure out some type of quarantining process.
@NJSue – I have clearly lost track of all the college de-densifying plans b/c I thought that Gettysburg sent students home Labor Day weekend. Must have been another small school in PA.
@ucbalumnus – I won’t say most, but certainly many colleges plan to send students home at Thanksgiving and administer exams remotely. I have also heard of some that will allow students to remain on campus after Thanksgiving, but only if they do not return home for Thanksgiving, but more were in the first camp.
Re: Libraries. Add me to the list of those surprised that the library has not arranged a secure borrowing plan. My local library offered curbside pick-up after the initial spring shutdown, and then gradually moved to allowing patrons to return to the library. They still heavily promote an awesome system where patrons request books online, and then retrieve from a room that has its own entrance. Books have already been checked out, so all we need to do is walk through and pick up the book filed by patron’s name. I have heard of something similar at college libraries.
Elon has moved to Alert Level 3 - High Alert following a recent outbreak. Students have been on campus for 1 month.
https://www.elon.edu/u/news/2020/09/21/elon-campus-moves-to-covid-19-alert-level-3-high-alert/
NJSue that is too bad about Gettysburg. While I know they had a big spike really early it looks like their numbers are back down and at low or moderate level. (5 cases? based on their dashboard)
And I am really sorry ElomMomMD that is really awful. It just jacked way up in a matter of days looking at the dashboard.
@NJSue - Gettysburg actually did this Labor Day weekend - the college was quickly running out of space for isolating/quarantining students.
CU boulder is switching to all online classes for at least 2 weeks.
It’s been tough to get an accurate picture of the spread on campus because of the way CU reports testing and who they test, but the feeling locally was the spread was out of control. The state opened a testing facility across from campus late last week to try and get a handle on the numbers, and I think the closure is a result of that.
@TheGFG Many interlibrary loan participants exchange PDFs. So, for example, if a patron wants a chapter of a book or an article from a journal, the lending institution will have a staff member scan the content and deliver it electronically to the receiving library. Maybe your daughter can ask if that’s an option in her case?
It’s a shame that campus is closed to such an extent that the library isn’t operating. I know of a number of libraries that allow you to order and check out books in advance. You pick them up at a socially distanced window as other posters have described upthread.
I’m copying and pasting my post from the Washington and Lee forum since it isn’t very active over there. I would love anyone’s input/opinion of their handling of COVID. From the outside, it doesn’t look that great. Here’s my post:
Wondering if anyone can speak to the school’s COVID response. I just went to their dashboard and was surprised and disappointed to see that they had only tested 700-odd students to date. And the case number was quite high for such a small school. Do you think the school’s administration shares the area’s views of the virus? I.e. not taking it all that seriously? I contrast that with Vassar’s response, which is a similar sized school. they’ve run over 6,000 tests and have no active cases (from a high of 23 cases). W&L has only tested 771 kids, with 24 cases, and it looks like they have 21 active cases. What am I missing? This seems like a grossly inadequate response.
Got an answer on the W&L forum! Apparently they’ve done a lot of testing which is not reflected on the dashboard. Their plan seems very reasonable and thoughtful. Phew!
@cinnamon1212 - I haven’t really seen any discussion about W&L on this thread or others and I have only anecdotes which may not be helpful. I have a casual friend whose daughter started at W&L this year. From what the friend reported, the administration was being pretty strict with rules and as of a few weeks ago there were many students who had received warnings and sort of been placed on probation (would possibly be asked to leave if any further violations). However, it didn’t seem like they were doing much testing. Also, I noticed that in photos from move in day, both parents were allowed in to help and there was not social distancing/masks with others in the dorm. This is quite different from the policies at some other LACs as you noted but I’m sure there is a big range with regard to resources and approaches. My D is at Vassar and parents were not allowed in dorms to help students move in.