PLA Resources on COVID-19

The PLA Board of Directors and staff are committed to providing information on the rapidly-evolving situation with COVID-19 to PLA members. We have compiled some information below to consider as your library, community, and family respond to the crisis. If you have information you think would be helpful to add, please email pla@ala.org.


ALA COVID-19 Recovery

Strong libraries—and a well-supported library workforce—are essential to the recovery of communities devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This collection of tools, developed and updated by units across the American Library Association, will help communities, library workers, and library supporters plot the best course forward for their libraries.


COVID-19 Response Surveys

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, PLA coordinated with several ALA units and other library organizations to survey the library community to learn and share information about the impacts of COVID-19 on libraries, library staff, and our work serving our communities. On June 3, the ALA released the findings from the Libraries Respond: COVID-19 Survey, where more than 3,800 K–12 school, college and university, public, and other libraries from all 50 states responded to the survey between May 12–18. Public libraries represented about 2,900 of all responses, with an estimated 30% response rate. The results can be found at http://www.ala.org/pla/issues/covid-19/surveyoverview.

On April 8, 2020, the PLA released its findings from a March 2020 survey of public libraries about their response to COVID-19 and the impact it has had on their operations and ability provide programs and services to their community. The results, captured from over 2,500 libraries, can be found at http://www.ala.org/pla/issues/covid-19/march2020survey.

Explore the data in an interactive data visualization created to accompany an article in Public Libraries (January/February 2021).


Public Libraries Respond to COVID-19 Webinars

The recordings of PLA's March 26–April 23, 2020 webinar series feature updates on the then-current status of the pandemic, examples of how libraries are dealing with closures and serving their communities virtually, and opportunities to share and learn from each other are freely available for viewing.