Comparing University Libraries in Different Cities in Turkey with regards to Digitalisation and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities worldwide halted face-to-face education and instead began focusing on distance learning/education. Accordingly, it is necessary to consider the impact of this new digital era in terms of access to university libraries. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the digital services provided by university libraries in general and the solutions they have proposed to overcome the impact of COVID-19 on the higher education system in particular. To this end, secondary data from 30 selected state universities related to their library services, as accessed from their websites, is analysed to clarify the suitability of the existing digitalisation process in Turkish universities. It was found that digitalisation effectively equalises these different universities in terms of access to resources, regardless of their history/ranking/ structure or the cities they are physically established in.