Trends in Latin America: Libraries' Challenges Magnified by the COVID-19 Pandemic

At the beginning of 2020, our world experienced an unusual turnaround in our daily lives. The appearance of COVID-19 forced all inhabitants to suspend their economic, social, and educational activities and to remain in confinement. Library services were strongly affected, and after an almost total paralysis they restarted their activities "reinventing themselves," that is, looking for new ways or expanding existing ones, specifically remotely, to provide information to those who required it. This work describes the situation of libraries in Spanish-Portuguese Latin America facing the crisis caused by the pandemic. It gives an overview of the situation in the region and reports on the role of libraries during the current crisis and the near future. It reviews the twenty world trends in the library environment as presented in the "IFLA Trend Report 2021 Update," comparing them with the reality of Latin America. In order to make a more precise analysis, the twenty trends are grouped into four areas: society, community/users, libraries, and role of librarians. The article concludes with a vision of the future, foreseeing the roles of libraries and librarians in the post-pandemic years.