The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted Australian universities and their libraries but has been felt most strongly by students and staff who are already marginalised. This article, written by Kay Tucker and Becky Batagol, draws upon both published literature and the authors’ own experiences as a librarian and academic employed at Monash University, Australia's largest university. Important lessons from the pandemic for universities and university libraries at times of crisis and disaster include: actively recognising and responding to structural inequalities amongst students and staff; organising services so that all can participate to their fullest ability; providing students with opportunities for social connection, enhanced digital capabilities, safe and inclusive spaces and accessible materials; as well as flexible employment practices.

In this article Peter Kargbo describes the impact of the first national lockdown, due to Covid-19, on students using the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton. He describes some of the ways that library services responded and looks at some aspects concerning collection development. He begins his article by taking a brief look at life in the library for students prior to the arrival of the pandemic before describing the period that followed up to the end of the academic year in summer 2020.

This paper is based on a parallel session presented at the BIALL Conference 2017 by Corryn Walker. The content focusses on a project undertaken by Manchester Metropolitan University Library during 2015/2016 to revamp their ‘Welcome and Induction’ programme. The project was coordinated by Corryn Walker and Elaine Cooke, both Deputy Library Services Managers. The article covers the background to, and motivation behind the project, its aims and objectives and the changes made to improve how the library welcomes new students to the service.

This article by Helen Riley explains how changes in official publishing have affected the provision of official publications at Warwick University Library, and discusses the pros and cons of print versus online publications. It also explains how using and promoting good online databases may help to save staff time and shelf space at a time when library budgets are being curtailed.

Universities enter into contracts with publishers or providers of aggregated resources on behalf of university libraries to provide staff and students with access to material in electronic format for educational and research purposes. Following a brief review of twelve database provider contracts, our research demonstrates that Australian academics are potentially breaching the contractual terms and conditions of electronic resources when accessing, downloading and printing articles and other materials. They are covered for research purposes, but not for educational purposes.