Abstract:
Libraries play a significant role as a social institution in the day to day lives of people.
The social significance of the public library is fundamentally its influence on all the
individuals of the community and on the interactive relationships among them. The
importance of libraries can be judged by the efficiency of their organization and the
degree to which they are fulfilling their mission. During the Covid-19 pandemic most
of the library facilities available to the students of the Faculty of Arts of the University
of Colombo were curtailed. This research aimed at finding the adverse effects of
closing physical facilities, and it remains to be seen whether the digitalization of the
physical library enables the maintaining of social significance of the use of the
library. A sample of 48 students who are enrolled in a four-year special degree
programme, with a compulsory research component which requires the use of the
library extensively, was used for this study. A semi-structured questionnaire was
distributed among them using the Google forms asking them to narrate their
experiences. The results revealed that, the social significance of the use of libraries
has remained static despite the closing of the physical libraries. However, the
narrations provided by the students indicate the need for integrating the faculty-wise
library facilities with the main library and the need for a direct connection to main
library facilities through the learning management system (LMS), enabling students
to carryout their studies even during the pandemic.
