Acting like a start-up: National Library of Estonia during Covid-19 pandemic

The situation escalated quickly. In February, Estonia started to follow more closely the destruction caused by the virus in other countries, but it still seemed to be far away and not very likely to affect us. At the beginning of March, with the first cases reported in Estonia, we gradually became aware that it may become also our problem. Still the emergency situation with the partial lockdown came unexpected. As the virus spread fast, the corresponding official decisions came with no warning, and institutions had to react immediately.

I would like to begin with a timeline. The Estonian Government declared an emergency situation in the evening of 12 March which meant that as of the next day, the library (see Figure 1) closed and at that time it was unknown for how long. On 13 March, we formed our own crisis management committee which started to gather every 2 days (during the first weeks) and later weekly to monitor the overall situation and make the necessary amendments in our work organisation. Quick rearrangements were made, and most of our employees started to work remotely. The Service Department decided to reorganise their work and open a service point in the library’s foyer on Monday, 16 March. However, by Monday new restrictions had been imposed and it was clear that we would not be able to provide services requiring human contact. Instead, we moved online and started to provide services contact-free. On 21 April, we launched a new service – a possibility to order books via parcel machines to every corner of the country. At the end of April, we introduced the walk-in service and personal information counselling via Webex – to provide more convenient options to chat, email and telephone. The emergency situation ended on 17 May, and the National Library opened the entire reading area to users on 18 May – fortunately our spacious reading rooms enable them to keep their distance. Until autumn, we have applied limited opening hours – Monday to Friday from 12 noon to 5 p.m.

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Figure 1.

Birds-eye view of National Library of Estonia.

Looking back at these exceptional months, we are particularly proud that we could quickly react to the new situation and continue with our basic services – home lending, access to databases and digital sources, answering to enquiries and counselling, digitising and photocopying. It was not easy, especially in the first days under emergency rules. On the first day of closure, our crisis management committee gathered to consider how exactly the crisis was affecting us and what would be the next steps. It was important not to panic but think through how we should proceed. Concrete tasks with deadlines were assigned to key persons, and the crisis management committee closely followed both the overall situation and our own developments. One of the first concerns was to take care that our users would not have to worry about penalties or upcoming due dates. We renewed all due dates of loans and stopped all penalties (the latter has by now developed into a test project aiming to discontinue the penalties altogether). Our communications and marketing team rushed to use all channels available to inform the readers which services and sources were available electronically via our website and which services we started to provide contact-free. As the National Library of Estonia also acts as the development centre for library services with a task to support other libraries, we created a special page on our website providing information on the work of other Estonian libraries. The page also offered official guidelines for libraries during the pandemic (now replaced by guidelines for organising work after the emergency situation). Like other libraries, we used all advantages offered by publishers to make available as many electronic resources as possible. Due to circumstances, there were two services we had to discontinue when the library building closed – services provided in reading rooms and personal information counselling. These were largely compensated by remote options – chat, email or telephone. At the end of April, to provide more convenient options, we launched a walk-in service for general enquiries (as an alternative to chat) and video counselling for more time-consuming enquiries, providing an environment that enables to contact the library via smart device or computer. At the request of our universities, we set up some computer workstations in the foyer enabling authorised use of digital material with restricted access.

As home lending instantly became very popular, we focused on making it as exhaustive and convenient as possible. We extended home lending to cover also our open shelves collections. The staff quickly implemented a number of ideas that had been under discussion already before the pandemic. We were very happy to have taken into use the Book Dispenser (see Figure 2) in 2019 – it became an invaluable tool for home lending, allowing to collect and return books contact-free. Due to the explosive growth in the number of loans, the dispenser could not accommodate all the borrowed books and we arranged an additional contact-free pickup area in the library foyer. In April, we launched the possibility to order and return books via the parcel machines of our national postal service whose network covers the entire country – it allowed users to order books from the National Library’s collections to other parts of the country. Just to mention – while preparing for this service, we also negotiated with Wolt and Bolt (international delivery and transportation services covering dozens of countries), but as coming to an agreement seemed to take more time than expected, we chose the postal service. Both of these home lending services are available to registered users but becoming a registered user is a very simple procedure – which we stressed in each public message. It has been very easy to join our readership and start using our resources. During the first week of the emergency situation, the National Library was the only library in Tallinn providing home lending. After that, other libraries had worked out their solutions and opened their virtual doors.

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Figure 2.

Book Dispenser of the National Library.

On the very first day the building had to close, we had a big event scheduled to take place – a seminar dedicated to the Mother Tongue Day. This was the first test of our ability to adapt to the new situation – with only a few hours for reorganising, the event went online, gathering a large audience. Like other libraries, we started to promote our collections and engage our users via social media. Just to mention some: we launched a competition to prepare a GIF or a meme, using old posters or postcards from our digital archive (the winners were two 10-year-olds who said they had never imagined that digitised material could be so exciting); we brought special attention to PressReader which became very popular; we prepared a collection of e-books and other electronic sources for teachers to assist them during the remote learning period; our Facebook posts pointed out different topical themes and resources: the first-ever basketball match in the country 100 years ago, the Day of the National Flag, recommended travel books to compensate for the limited travelling possibilities; invitation to take part in a media literacy quiz, and many more. Our Education Centre created a web nest with short videos teaching to use the library’s collections.

When asking how did we manage in these exceptional circumstances, the results are best reflected in numbers: compared to 2019, the number of new registered users increased 49% during January to April (in April the rise was 82%), home lending increased 27% (in April 40%) and the number of chats (see Figure 3) increased three times. We use the Recommy Promoter Index to collect feedback from our customers on direct public services – during January to April 2019 the index was 87%, during the same period in 2020 it was 92.8%. We received a lot of grateful messages thanking our staff for working out ways to make our collections accessible.

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Figure 3.

Live chat session in the National Library.

We also had to make sure that we continue with tasks assigned to us on a national level and also support services that enable the library to function smoothly – to collect the legal deposit copies (including the digital copies), manage acquisitions, supplement the National Bibliography Database, issue international standard numbers, digitise our collections, continue cleaning and binding of our stock. Our web archive team started to seek for and archive web content related to Covid-19; we also called upon our users to let us know of such web resources. We tried to assist our remotely working staff in every way we could – computers and books were delivered to home offices by the library for those who could work at home. All the in-house workflows continued and this ensured that there was no gap caused by the closing of the physical space. Keeping up team spirit virtually was a particularly interesting challenge. Our in-house newsletter was the central point bringing together and sharing the remote work experience of different units. Several online training courses took place, ranging from design thinking to useful tips for public speaking, but also instructions for safe communication over the web. Two online meetings for the entire staff contributed to in-house information exchange.

A nationwide project we had become part of already in 2019 gained a special significance under the new circumstances. The Estonian Ministry of Culture has a 20-year tradition of giving each year a special focus. As a strange coincidence, 2020 has been named the Year of Digital Culture and one of its leading partners is the National Library. The pandemic gave digital culture a special meaning and revealed how important is its role in exceptional circumstances when human contact is brought to minimum. During this theme year we have initiated a campaign to learn from the wide public which books they would like to be digitised; we have started a project to record audiobooks that can be listened via smart devices, the first 50 of them will be available at the end of June. The general aim of the year is to raise awareness of national digital resources and to contribute to increasing the digital content which became particularly topical in the new situation. A number of interesting undertakings are scheduled to take place in the second half of the year.

What did we learn? Any crisis brings out the innovative mind. It was like a test showing how flexible we are and how quickly we are able to adapt to a new and unpredictable situation. Looking back, I am glad to say that we did not just survive, but we managed to treat the crisis as an opportunity. This difficult period very clearly showed how the National Library of Estonia has developed as an organisation. Every single day was an exercise in change management, and the library worked almost like a start-up, making quick decisions and carrying them out. I am enormously proud of my staff for adapting so fast and for working with such enthusiasm. It provided a good opportunity to test how we can apply remote work, and we became convinced that we can operate well also in such circumstances. This is particularly important for us to know on the background of the upcoming reconstruction when part of the staff will be working remotely. We got many new users and were discovered by people who had not thought about the National Library as their own library.

The unique task of libraries is to preserve cultural heritage – in itself it seems to be a rather static function. Yet it becomes increasingly evident how important is the ability to swiftly adapt to changes in the surrounding environment. The pandemic period showed how people yearn for knowledge and information. In difficult situations one becomes resourceful – this was proved by the many ways creative people invented to share their music, paintings and other creative work. Libraries acquired a special meaning – they were acknowledged as important institutions who can, in the unexpected close-down, help people to better cope with the unusual circumstances. But libraries are not just about digital issues – libraries are also building the community, providing a meeting place for people. This role suffered most and we have felt how important it is for the community to have direct contacts, to come together and socialise. The role of libraries is twofold – to make available the virtual world with its diversity and treasures but also to help maintain human-to-human contacts.

The emergency situation clearly indicated one of the most important requirements for libraries – the need to be ready to react fast and adapt to new situations. We do not know yet how this notorious virus will affect our lives in the future, but considering how actively people travel and how fast everything spreads, it is obvious that we have to be ready for similar unexpectancies. This is, I think, the new normality for libraries – to support both remote contacts with the digital world and personal contacts between people, to keep pace with the quickly changing life which may sometimes take quite unexpected turns, and to be prepared to continue with services in different situations.