On March 17, 2020, the Center for Research Libraries suspended all on-site operations in response to the Covid-19 global pandemic out of consideration for the safety and well-being of our staff. Since the suspension of onsite operations at our headquarters in Chicago, CRL staff have maintained CRL services in a modified capacity through remote work arrangements.
After extensive internal review, CRL will implement an 8-week phased reopening plan (revised 9/1/2020).
Providing the services and support that our members have relied upon since 1949 is a top-level priority, second only to the health and well-being of CRL staff. CRL will continue to monitor all relevant federal, state and local orders and ensure that our operations comply with guidelines in our jurisdiction. As such, the plan below is an outline and subject to change. Any new developments will be updated here, on our CRL Covid-19 Response plan page.
On Wednesday, June 17th, CRL will resume limited services.
- Document delivery of scanned articles will begin
- Linda Hall Library article delivery (through RapidILL) has reopened
- We will accept returned materials
As of July 15, we have expanded our operations to include:
- All ILL services
- Lending of physical items
- Demand purchase requests
- On-demand digitization
As of August 12, CRL resumed all onsite operations.
As of September 2, appointments to use CRL's Reading Room will be available.
Since onsite operations were moved remote, CRL has continued to provide access to a vast corpus of digitized materials to support research and learning. CRL’s reference and instruction team fielded requests for research assistance, and helped researchers affiliated with CRL member libraries access and navigate CRL’s vast store of digital content. CRL also brokered content availability for major primary source collections from providers like Gale and EBSCO. In addition, we held our annual CRL Voting Members Meeting virtually, surpassing all previous attendance records.
Please feel free to contact Marie Waltz, Head of Access Initiatives and Special Projects Coordinator, with any questions regarding the reopening.