A study on researcher use behavior changes since Covid-19

In December 2019, Covid-19 virus spread from Wuhan, China, to the rest of the world and had profound impact on politics, economy, society, and culture as well as significant effect on libraries and information utilization. This study aimed to propose future directions for library service by analyzing information use behavior of researchers and deriving the requirements through a survey method. As a result, it was initially identified that the data types and search paths used by researchers have changed to using electronic or online resources. Second, it was difficult to access and acquire certain data only available offline along with difficulty in searching and selecting data suitable for the purpose of research, difficulty in grasping the material, and technical problems such as usage method, search, and information use environment were identified. Third, after Covid-19, there has been a change in demand for services people need from libraries. Including the expansion of budget support for securing digital content, free provision of e-books and e-journals for a limited time by publishers, free provision of paid educational content for a certain period, and temporary copyright agreement for works, libraries were required to make efforts to secure information resources available online in response to Covid-19.