Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Impact Of Covid-19 On Service Dog Organizations, Danny Benbassat, Abigail Konopasky, Michael Fox

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic led to federal, state, and local measures that paralyzed businesses across the nation. Among them were behavioral and mental health nonprofit organizations. The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of the pandemic on nonprofit programs that train and place service dogs with veterans/service members. Six service dog managers completed eight reflection probe questionnaires and participated in three focus groups. This study found that facility shutdown, businesses shutdown, and social distancing resulted in a training bottleneck for both canines and humans. These primary challenges created secondary and tertiary challenges that mirror and lend support …

The Covid Whirlwind On The Veterinary World: End-Of-Life Care And Euthanasia During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elizabeth Chalmers, Paula Gerstenblatt, River Hodgdon

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

Veterinary providers experience job-specific psychological stress from their dual role in both providing medical care to pets and supporting pet-owner clients through end-of-life care and the euthanasia process, contributing to compassion fatigue and burnout in the field. COVID-19 has impacted the provision of veterinary care and affected communication between providers and pet owners. This qualitative study explores the experiences of veterinary providers who provided end-of- life care and performed euthanasia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants for this qualitative study were recruited and interviewed using criterion sampling from four veterinary practices in the northeastern United States. Inductive thematic analysis was used …

Dog Guardians’ Subjective Well-Being During Times Of Stress And Crisis: A Diary Study Of Affect During Covid-19, Lori S. Hoy, Brigitte Stangl, Nigel Morgan

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

The impacts of companion animals on human well-being have been receiving increased media and research attention, especially in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, there have been calls for research to consider the major components of subjective well-being separately and for research designs to include assessments over time. In line with this suggestion, the purpose of this study was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how being a dog guardian can impact affect and contribute to the overall assessment of subjective well-being. This study used a seven-day diary design to capture 31 dog guardians’ day-to- day feelings and thoughts …

Student Information Use During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Heather A. Howard, Annette Bochenek, Zoeanna A. Mayhook, Trena Trowbridge, Steven Lux

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Since early 2020, life for students has changed tremendously. It has been a time of stress, turmoil, and trauma for students. Researchers from a large Midwestern university wanted to determine how student information use has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the results of a mixed-methods study undertaken in 2021 using surveys and follow-up focus groups to determine if and how student information use has changed. To answer this, we explored student use of news sources, social media sources, political affiliations, and information responses, coupled with to what extent these factors demonstrate or impact potential changes in information …

Spatiotemporal Distribution Change Of Online Reference During The Time Of Covid-19, Thom Gerrish, Ningning Nicole Kong

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The goal of this project was to identify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the spatiotemporal distribution of the library’s online patrons, so that we could assess if the scheduled library reference hours are meeting the needs of the academic community. We collected each online reference patron’s location information via their IP address, as well as the timestamp of each online reference instance. The spatiotemporal distribution patterns were analyzed and compared before and after in-person instruction was suspended due to COVID-19 distance protocols and a closing of the campus in the 2020 spring semester. The results show that the …

Jews And Science, Sander L. Gilman

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

Jews and Science examines the complicated relationship between Jewish identities and the evolving meanings of science throughout the history of Western academic culture. Jews have been not only the agents for study of things Jewish, but also the subject of examination by “scientists” across a range of disciplines, from biology and bioethics to anthropology and genetics. Even the most recent iteration of Jewish studies as an academic discipline—Israel studies—stresses the global cultural, economic, and social impact of Israeli science and medicine.

The 2022 volume of the Casden Institute’s Jewish Role in American Life series tackles a range of issues that …

Community Outreach And Engagement In A Time Of Crisis: The Peer Research Consultants Program, Lauren Fralinger, Shatha Baydoun

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The Peer Research Consultants (PRC) program at the University of Miami Libraries (UML), was formed in 2016 as part of the Learning Commons initiative to collocate and centralize academic services at Richter Library. Although the program had a virtual component in the form of chat and phone services when founded, it was primarily a physical setup where library student workers assisted researchers using a peer-to-peer system. In this paper, we highlight the historical trajectory of the peer research consultant (PRC) program in academic libraries using Richter Library as a case study. We argue that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic …

A Mixed-Methods Assessment Of Human Well-Being Related To The Presence Of Companion Animals During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Bindi Bennett, Suzie Cosh, Jack Thepsourinthone, Amy Lykins

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

COVID-19 and the measures used to curb the pandemic (e.g., lockdowns, isolation) have significantly impacted mental health and well-being. This study sought to investigate the role of companion animals in alleviating stress and improving mental health during the pandemic. In this study, 250 Australian adults completed measures of well-being and life satisfaction, animal dependency, perceived emotional support from animals, and animals’ effect on mood. Employment and living with others were the strongest predictors of positive life satisfaction and well-being, while greater dependency on companion animals for emotional support and companion animals’ negative effects on mood were associated with reduced life …

Not So Different As Cats And Dogs: Companionship During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Shelly Volsche, Elizabeth Johnson

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

COVID- 19 lockdown provided a unique, in situ opportunity to probe caretaker experiences of living with companion animals during a stressful event. We launched an online survey in the United States that included standard demographic questions, questions related to household structures, and 25 Likert scale questions that probed perceptions of whether and how respondents’ relationships changed during social isolation. This paper uses a subset of that data specific to dog and cat guardians. A principal components analysis and Mann-Whitney U test returned no significant differences between cat and dog guardians on three scales (Scale 1: Psychological Well-being, Scale 2: …

Impacting Community Well-Being In Lafayette, Indiana, In The Midst Of A Pandemic, Eli Coltin, Eric Flaningam, Jace Newell, Jason Ware

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

For the past five years, Dr. Jason Ware has centered community-based research and service-learning courses around local community partners’ needs as they focused collectively on community well-being issues. The nature of their work has prioritized qualitative research methods such as narrative inquiry via in-depth interviews and ethnography via immersive observations within varying service-providing institutions such as the Hartford Hub and the Hanna Community Center. COVID-19 and the constant threat of its transmission meant that Dr. Ware, his students, and their community partners had to approach their work differently. They responded with a pivot. They turned to mining large publicly accessible …

Homelessness And Covid-19, Justin Macneill, Alexa Lahey, Nina Teo

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the struggle of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) and presented new challenges to those serving this vulnerable population. To better understand and articulate how COVID has impacted both PEH and their ecosystem of support, we compared the national response - aggregated via a literature review of both gray and academic literature - to the statewide response in Indiana and the local response in Tippecanoe County.

Local homelessness providers emphasized that organizational partnerships are key - policy changes in one organization can have malignant effect extending throughout and putting additional strain on other organizations within the local …

How Libraries Responded In The Early Days Of The Pandemic: A Study Of The Lis Literature, Jane Kinkus Yatcilla, Sarah Young

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

As we emerge from an unprecedented pandemic that saw closure of libraries, schools, and universities worldwide, we can begin to assess potential lasting impacts on institutions, professions and communities. Through a rapid bibliometric study of COVID-19-related library publishing, we provide a first glimpse into the impacts of the pandemic on library operations, services, collections, and the workforce. We identified and analyzed 237 journal articles published in 2020 about libraries and the pandemic. These articles indicate broad cross-sectoral, global impacts on libraries and librarianship. Our analysis provides a baseline for future research on lasting effects of the pandemic on the field.

Choosing Readings: Portuguese Academic Library Users' Preferences For Printed Books Or E-Books, Tatiana Sanches, Luiza Baptista Melo, Isabel Sá, Célia Cruz

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The emergence of e-books as resources of scientific information in university libraries has been imposing at the pace of technology, with advantages such as portability, cost or accessibility, assuming that e-reading is being well received and appropriated by library users, who can access scientific information from anywhere. However, recent studies from prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, pointed to the resurgence of paper reading preferences. This study analyses the behavioural trends in the use of scientific information from these two media: printed books and e-books and the way university libraries users choose to use it, particularly in the pandemic context. To …

Covid-19 - Revealing Unaddressed Systemic Barriers In The 45th Anniversary Of The Southeast Asian American Experience, Quyen T. Dinh, Katrina D. Mariategue, Anna H. Byon

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

2020 marks the 45th year anniversary of the Southeast Asian American (SEAA) experience, starting with the first wave of refugees who fled Cambodia, Laos, and Viet Nam as a result of American occupation and wars throughout the region. Collectively, this community is the largest community of refugees ever to be resettled in America. Yet despite four decades in this country, Southeast Asian Americans continue to face disparate challenges like other low-income, immigrant, refugee, communities of color — ranging from poverty, to educational inequity, health disparities, and harsh immigration policies. COVID-19 pandemic has also revealed and exacerbated systemic barriers that have …