The phrase new normal is an oxymoron typically used to indicate a life event that is out of the ordinary and has a long-lasting or permanent impact on someone’s day-to-day routine. But using the phrase to describe efforts that makes me uncomfortable to fight a global pandemic implies a sense of permanence. In her foreword to John Putzier, Weirdos in the Workplace: The New Normal—Thriving in the Age of the Individual (2004), Libby Sartain claims that the phrase “the new normal” is a recent coinage

1. Information Aggregation, Dissemination
and Diffusion in post-Covid-19 Period :
introspect of an information
professional
dr. s.ghosh
associate professor, department of library & information science
university of north bengal

2. JARGONS
New Normal
The phrase new normal is an oxymoron typically used to indicate a life event that is out of
the ordinary and has a long-lasting or permanent impact on someone’s day-to-day routine.
But using the phrase to describe efforts that makes me uncomfortable to fight a
global pandemic implies a sense of permanence.
In her foreword to John Putzier, Weirdos in the Workplace: The New Normal—
Thriving in the Age of the Individual (2004), Libby Sartain claims that the phrase
“the new normal” is a recent coinage
According to Roger McNamee, who coined the term, the new normal is a time of
substantial possibilities if you are willing to play by the new rules for the long term.
In the new normal it is more important to do things right than to succumb to the
tyranny of urgency.
6/22/2020
@sghosh, nbu
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3. JARGONS
Social distancing
• It’s incredible how quickly social distancing went from being a
phrase few people had ever heard to one that’s repeated all over
social media, on the news, and in private conversations multiple
times a day. It’s ubiquitous, and it’s started to get on a lot of
people’s nerves, either because they’re sick of hearing the same
instructions over and over again or because the phrase itself
invokes a sense of loneliness and isolation.
• Social distancing is a part of the recommendations by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), so the phrase likely isn’t
going anywhere. But synonyms for this one can at least help us
look at it in a different way.
• There’s civil separation, which calls to mind Gwyneth
Paltrow’s conscious uncoupling, and makes this all sound very
mindful and new age. There’s also communal expansion, collective
absence, and sociable extension, which all remind us we’re in this
together, and we’re making these sacrifices in the name of being
good neighbors and citizens.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 3

4. Paradigm Shift
• Services are to be delivered to whatever extent possible.
• Work-from-Home: while for professionals across industries it has been
an easier transition as many of them work on their laptops and smart
devices even in office. They can simply plug in at homes now.
• Face-to-face communication or personal communication which will get
restored as and when things are back to normal.
• But students have had to make far bigger adjustments as learning has
always been in classrooms which they can’t go to now.
• Besides many of them may not be that well equipped with technology
tools to avail of remote learning. Here the Digital India vision of the
government is emerging as a vital instrument for solving the present
crisis due to Covid-19.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 4

5. Centrality Shift
• It is also a fact that use of technology in
education is resulting in different concepts
in the system, for instance the move from
teacher-centric education to student-
centric education.
• We have been talking about virtual
classrooms and various online tools today
allow us to make the engagement between
the teacher and students as close to a real,
in classroom type experience, as possible.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 5

6. Consequences
@sghosh, nbu
6/22/2020
• When it comes to education many
countries decided to close its
educational institutions with immediate
effect. Everyone took it as short-term
disruption. But these interruptions will
not just be a short-term issue but can
also have long-term consequences for
the affected cohorts.
• Education is one of the worst effects'
aspects of Covid-19. The requirement
today is to analyze the current situation
and take out some construction path for
the future as the pandemic has
conveyed that it is not going to leave
the world early so we need to learn to
live with it with the methods, which are
suitable for the students and the
educators.
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7. Hurdles
@sghosh, nbu
6/22/2020
• The implications of coronavirus on education
can have long term implications especially for
the girls, refugees, displaced, migrant children,
differently-abled, and students with mental
health issues.
• At present, there is a drastic need to continue
education through alternative pathways. This
should be a priority of all the government to
find out a standard operating procedure to
continue with the alternative means of
education.
• There is a need to devise a hybrid system of
the online system and offline education
benefits. The present situation shows the
inclination of the system towards offline more
as it gives a feel of the educational institutions
but with the current pandemic challenge.
Though we were innovating for the upcoming
needs of education we can’t ignore the
benefits of an offline system.
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8. Challenges
• In the Indian scenario, most of the students do
not have the requirements for the online
systems.
• There is no doubt that the education system is
facing serious challenges, but every institute
needs to answer this as per their resources,
students, and digital infrastructure.
• There is a need to devise a hybrid system, which
can bring a holistic dimension to the spectrum of
education. The new normal(?) in education
should not paralyze the other aspects of
personality development and should address to
every section of the society else it will create a
new divide in the society of digital have and
digital have nots.
• Time to think, analyze, and innovate a new
normal in the education system for creating more
equality in society.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 8

9. Inequity in education
Safety
 With improved health and sanitation practices followed in an inclusive
manner with facilities, information and communication accessible for all
students and staff.
 Demand for socio-emotional support and counseling services is high now
and will only continue to increase as the well-being of teachers and students
needs to take center stage.
Ensuring accessibility and reasonable accommodations of remote learning
It is critical that all learners have access to a curriculum following the
principles of Universal Design for Learning, with reasonable accommodations
and differentiation both now and after returning to school.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 9

10. Diffusion of Technology
• India’s multilayered society has always
needed a strong public education system
incorporating a holistic vision to achieve
universalization of education while also
establishing a discrimination-free
education system. However, this didn’t
receive adequate attention from policy-
makers. Now, the pandemic has
magnified inequalities like never before.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 10

11. Deployment and Issues
Accelerated adoption?
It apparently seems that Covid-19 has
accelerated adoption of digital
technology.
Forced to work in tandem and
improve in quality and delivery time
Ideal time to experiment and deploy
new tools to make education delivery
meaningful to students?
Is it the only chance to be more
efficient and productive while
developing new and improved
professional skills/knowledge through
online learning and assessment?
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 11

12. Rate of
Adoption of
Innovation
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 12

13. 6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 13

14. LIBRARY IN
POST-COVID 19
https://www.ifla.org/covid-19-and-libraries
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 14

15. What we can do…
• Providing services remotely: online article request
service
• Distributing lectures through YouTube channel
• Increasing the number of eBooks that people can
borrow
• Help for people needing to apply for benefits: job
Info etc
• Putting existing activities online and inventing
new ones.
• Virtual Transcribathon
• Inviting Library associations to enrich users
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 15

16. What we can do…
Contd…
• Remote Library Access
• Remote access to Electronic
materials and collections
• Providing Data and GIS services
• Digitized Distinctive Collections
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 16

17. Role of Digital Libraries
Eric Falt and Pratha Pratim Das opined
digital libraries can ensure continuity as
Covid-19 puts brake to academic activity.
• National Digital Library of India (NDLI) –
headquartered at IIT Kharagpur – has
established itself the as country’s largest online
learning platform. A premier gateway to over 48
million e-books and knowledge products across
disciplines, it has nearly 3 million regular users
today.
• The World Digital Library, developed by UNESCO
and the Library of Congress, is a pioneering
attempt to foster intercultural understanding by
offering access to digital heritage from 200
countries.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 17

18. Summing up…
• Issues of Higher Education in abroad and crisis of social
decline in the demand of international higher education is
vivid.
• Fearing withdrawal of job offers from corporates
because of the current situation.
• Replacement of canonical chalk–talk teaching model to
technology driven one.
• Policy for driving engagement at scale while ensuring
inclusive e-learning solutions and tackling the digital
divide.
• Swyam, Diksha, ePathshala, ePGPathshala etc are to be
blended with academic scenario as supplementary classes
for school, college and university education.
• Study materials in vernacular are to be made forthwith
emergency for catering need of the students studying in
their mother tongue.
• Unified Learning System must be emphasized by
blending both OTA and in-class education for effective
social inclusion.
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 18

19. Conscious uncoupling
THANK YOU
6/22/2020 @sghosh, nbu 19