Abstract
After almost 2 years, the general understanding of the Covid19 pandemic has transformed from a temporary transient pain for humanity to a prolonged state of emergency without a given end date. In this almost warlike state of mind libraries are still struggling on a daily base to cope with repeated lockdowns and other severe restrictions on their operations. With no end in sight this has become a matter of more or less constant trial and error. On the other hand; innovation has become an essential instrument to develop new forms of library services like never before. Libraries are definitely more digitally skilled and mature today than 2 years ago, and what they would have been had the pandemic never broken out.
To take up the position as new Editor of Alexandria in the middle of the Covid19 pandemic is a very special situation, since the length and the scale of the pandemic has largely affected both the editorial process and the content of the journal itself. Volume, 30, Issue 2–3, was for ex. entirely committed to libraries various ways of response to the initial impact of the pandemic, not least in the digital domain. All meeting, with the Editorial Board as well as with my predecessor Martyn Wade, has been held on Zoom instead of in real life. I would like here to take the opportunity to express my thanks Martyn for his contributions to the journal as Acting Editor in this probationary period, but also for all his help, generous support, and good advices during the handover process.
Given the present situation in the eve of 2022, facing the latest but probably not the last wave of the Corona virus, I am also rather convinced that the pandemic and its more long-term consequences for the library and information sector will continue to constitute a dominant theme for the journal in the years to come. Successive updates from authors of the interim reports in the last issue could for ex. serve as responses to the important question put by Martyn Wade in his last editorial about a more detailed definition of the often talked about ‘new normal’ for libraries – if there will ever be such a normal situation.
This issue, Volume 31, Issue 1, deals with the pandemic as well, with two papers focusing on library websites respectively the accelerated roll-out of digital strategies. The second theme in the issue is related to the Caribbean region. The challenge of teaching and assessing students of information literacy is address in one paper, while the other deals with caretaking of the literary collection from an important Caribbean writer. Finally, I am pleased to publish a paper on how the budget for staff training can be stretched in stringent economic times like the ones we presently live in. I would like to thanks all the authors for their valuable contributions to Alexandria.