Volume 7 (December 2023) The DLIS at 50: Reflecting, Reshaping – Embracing the Future
Articles

Securing the Cultural Heritage of the West Indies: The Role of the West Indiana and Special Collections, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago

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  • Judith Wright
Judith Wright
Bio

Published 2024-06-27

Keywords

  • digital,
  • digitisation,
  • heritage library,
  • special collections,
  • teleworking,
  • UWISpace,
  • virtual,
  • WISC
    • ...More
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Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Securing the Cultural Heritage of the West Indies: The Role of the West Indiana and Special Collections, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. (2024). Caribbean Library Journal, 7, 17-28. https://journals.sta.uwi.edu/ojs/index.php/clj/article/view/8988

Abstract

Change is a constant but quite often, forced change brings about new evolutions and long-lasting results, some good and some may require a little more convincing to accept. The COVID-19 Pandemic was one of those forced changes that the world over had to accept. Its impact on organisations and libraries was severe and, in some cases, has been the turn of the tide for many. At the West Indiana and Special Collections (WISC), Alma Jordan Library, The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus we were not spared. This paper will therefore examine the impact of the WISC and our ability to pivot to a virtual environment. Some of the challenges and weaknesses are highlighted as well as several benefits that emerged from the pandemic.
The findings presented are based on policies developed to mitigate challenges and an examination of email responses to research queries. The paper will also put forward a proposal that can be taken by the WISC section to reduce the impact of any future events that will affect access to the library as it did during the period of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

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