Vol. 2 No. 1 (2021): Theme issue on research on pandemic and crisis information

The current theme issue of the Nordic Journal of Library and Information Studies provides a flashback to what is now known as the first wave of Covid-19. Two of the scientific articles in our theme issue are about Norwegian libraries’ situation during the period of lockdown starting in March 2020, whereas the third is about young people’s information behaviour related to Covid-19 in Finland and the US during March to June the same year. The paper Folkebibliotekets digitale tilbud under koronakrisen – en case studie fra Tromsø bibliotek og byarkiv by Roswitha Skare examines the situation for the public library in Tromsø and the increased role of digital resources during the time the physical library was closed. The second paper is called Samfunnsoppdrag under press: Erfaringer og vurderinger i norske bibliotek under Covid-19 and is written by Sunniva Evjen, Terje Colbjørnsen, Idunn Bøyum, Kim Tallerås and Heidi Kristin Olsen. Based on surveys with library workers in different types of libraries it examines how Covid-19 has influenced the social missions of Norwegian libraries and emphasizes the role of crisis management. The third paper, Dealing with the COVID-19 infodemic: Understanding young people’s emotions and coping mechanisms in Finland and the United States, written by Muhaimin Karim, Rajesh Singh and Gunilla Widén, is an exploratory study with the aim to understand information experiences, emotional reactions, and coping mechanisms of young adults in two different populations during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.

This issue, furthermore, contains two book reviews of recently published edited works. Herbjørn Andresen has reviewed Uncertain archives. Critical keywords for big data, edited by Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, Daniela Agostinho, Annie Ring, Catherine D’Ignazio and Kristin Veel, whereas Samuel Edquist has written a review of a piece of work that is topical as seen in relation to the two scholarly papers in this issue on libraries in times of lockdown, that is, Libraries, archives and museums as democratic spaces in a digital age, edited by Ragnar Audunson, Herbjørn Andresen, Cicilie Fagerlid, Erik Henningsen, Hans-Christoph Hobohm, Henrik Jochumsen, Håkon Larsen, and Tonje Vold.