Contactless Services
A Survey of the Practices of Large Public Libraries in China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v41i2.14141Keywords:
China, public libraries, contactless services, mobile services, smart libraries, COVID-19Abstract
Contactless services have become a common way for public libraries to provide services. As a result, the strategy used by public libraries in China will effectively stop the spread of epidemics caused by human touch and will serve as a model for other libraries throughout the world. The primary goal of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the contactless service measures provided by large Chinese public libraries for users in the pandemic era, as well as the challenges and countermeasures for providing such services. The data for this study was obtained using a combination of website investigation, content analysis, and telephone interviews for an analytical survey study of 128 large public libraries in China. The study finds that touch-free information dissemination, remote resources use, no-touch interaction self-services, network services, online reference, and smart services without personal interactions are among the contactless services available in Chinese public libraries. Exploring the current state of contactless services in large public libraries in China will help to fill a need for empirical attention to contactless services in libraries and the public sector. Up-to-date information to assist libraries all over the world in improving their contactless services implementation and practices is provided.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Yajun Guo, Zinan Yang, Yiming Yuan, Huifang Ma, and Yan Quan Liu
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