Dr. Abdurahman Faraj

The COVID-19 virus (the novel coronavirus) swept through humanity since December 2019, and it affected the economic, social, political and educational structures of the world's countries all together, as it was natural for it to have its effects on the information industry, and it was necessary for this industry in turn to respond to this challenge and to limit its effects to the lowest possible extent, especially in light of the various precautionary methods and on their head what was called "Home Quarantine" or social distancing, and this article tries to reveal the features of this response with a focus in a specific way on the information sector and in the heart of it the libraries and information facilities. 

Open access to information:

Besides the global and Arab open access platforms carrying out their role in providing information sources without restrictions before the pandemic, the extent of the importance of this method in providing information during the pandemic became clear, especially as a support for the home quarantine, and an enrichment for human life by providing it with various and diverse information sources, and as a support for scientific research and searching for an effective cure for this dangerous virus. 

The Creative Commons foundation was correct in the description of this difficult time in which the need for information became free and clearest as possible, that it is the time of open access policies, and if it can be said: that the history of open access es back to the emergence of the internet itself, so the question is what if this pandemic happened thirty years a like before the emergence of the internet? how would the world look in terms of knowing news and circulating it? and how would we spend our time?

And addition to the classical channels for open access, many institutions and information facilities participated in providing this pattern of sources, and in this regard the (Majmaah) University launched the initiative (Your time in your house) to browse more than 800 million electronic scientific materials distributed between electronic books and scientific articles and audio books and university theses and others, and on the level of cultural institutions the Egyptian Ministry of Culture provided a group of publications of the bodies affiliated to it for free on the internet, and on the level of scientific research and providing lists of free information sources about COVID-19, one can point to the list of the Computerized Library Center and Wiley publishing house.  

Space of libraries: 

Besides the libraries in the countries of the world generally and the Arab world specifically closing their physical headquarters to avoid the evil of this epidemic, and in preservation of the workers in them and care for the beneficiaries from them, the library and information specialists had an important role in this emergency pandemic for humanity, and from that providing health information culture programs and electronic information services for the general beneficiaries, and providing information sources for doctors and researchers and workers in the field of medical sciences, and regarding what relates to the Arab world specifically the Library of Alexandria activated the (Ask a librarian) service in which communication is done with the reference services specialists via electronic mail, besides a Facebook page and the Facebook Messenger application specific to library services.

Information culture:

Information culture relates to the basic educational process in the nature of the matter, as it sometimes feeds into what is called continuous education, and the activities of information culture were one of the most prominent activities that became active in this pandemic, especially through what is called electronic seminars (Webinars) which are provided in an interactive form on the internet between the lecturer or lecturers and the audience of beneficiaries from students and researchers and information specialists themselves, and many software and applications were used in holding these electronic seminars such as: Zoom, to meeting, Microsoft and others, and many bodies were active in that as well such as: the Arab Federation for Libraries and Information and the Unified Arab Index and Al-Zad company for electronic archiving, and Naseej academy and others, as we also specifically mention here the electronic seminars prepared by the Scientific Research Group in Egypt (SRGE) and it addresses a group of contemporary information issues such as: artificial intelligence and big data and analyzing this data and using all that to avoid this epidemic, and usually these seminars are uploaded on YouTube which is one of the most important social communication sites after ogle globally.

And the social communication media contributes in limiting human proximity and contributing in the social distancing the matter that made from it the peak of communication and contact channels that the beneficiaries turned to with density