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Public Libraries In Norway And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Roswitha Skare

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Public libraries have played a central role in natural disasters such as the tornado in the Gulf of Mexico in 2004/2005 and the tsunami in the Tohoku region of Japan in 2011, but also in the financial crisis from 2008. While public libraries in these crises took on a very active role in providing shelter and infrastructure for their citizens, health crises seem to tell a different story. The Covid-19 pandemic that hit Europe and Norway in March 2020 caused a lock-down of public libraries’ buildings for several weeks, as was the case in almost every other European country. This …