COVID - 19 PANDEMIC AND THE CONSEQUENCIES ON LIBRARY SERVICES DELIVERY IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The unprecedented magnitude and excruciating impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic have been devastating. The pandemic which originated from the populous city of Wuham, Hubei Province, China in Nov.2019 has since become a global pandemic of frightening proportion, killing Million of people across the worlds. Apart from the health implications and the death associated with it, the pandemic also posed serious challenges for governance in many respects. Consequently, country around the world including institutions there in have been compelled to respond to the pandemic in diverse ways. Library services for instance were shut down completely during this period resulted into inability to provide access to essential information resources, especially hard copy materials. Normal lending and other library services and activities were suspended. These measures resulted into both study and work from home solution and most importantly making use of online platforms. Even though some students are now relying on online platform, there are still significant numbers who rely on library to access their course textbooks as the only substitute to the work. Hence, the study reveals that utilization on online platform for virtual library services in COVID -19 era has not been encouraging. However, COVID-19 pandemic has equally brought a general change of habit to both the users and the librarians through hygienic and preventive measures introduced by (National Centre for Disease Control NCDC) to reduce the spread of the pandemic. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of COIVID-19 pandemic on library services delivery in university libraries in Nigeria.