COVID-19 and Pakistani academic libraries: documenting the realities, challenges and state of services.

The sudden rise of global pandemic has disrupted almost each and every segment of the society. On March, 2020, educational institutions in Pakistan including Libraries were forced to shift to online teaching, learning and provision of services. The need of the time is not only to document the systems, processes and procedures being implemented in Higher Educational Institutions including libraries, but learn from and build on these experiences. This survey is first of its kind effort to understand how Academic Libraries in Pakistan paved their way towards online transition, the challenges faced by them, the inclusion of library staff in overall decision making, the procedures and SOPs being implemented and their readiness to understand and respond to challenges. The study also provides recommendations for the Educational institutions and Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan highlighting the importance of creating systems and resources to document, implement, share and build capacities of library staff at the National Level