On May 19, 2020, Broujerdi, NLAI President, had a video call with Ismail, Deputy Director of General National Library of Malaysia. Referring to the NLAI activities during the outbreak of Covid-19 disease, Broujerdi, in this meeting, pointed out, “In continuation of digitalization processes, 10 million sheets of documents, 150 thousand volumes of books, including 23 thousand volumes of children’s books and 37 thousand volumes of manuscripts along with 110,000 volumes of student dissertations were uploaded on the website of the NLAI, to be available to the members.
” She also referred to the country’s economy changes following the outbreak of Covid-19 and the change in people’s lifestyles. She mentioned, “With the formation of the Corona Committee in the NLAI, the information received and produced on the subject of Corona are documented and maintained for future use.
” Ismail also explained the NLM, which closed for many days due to the outbreak of Covid-19, would resume operations on June 9. Welcoming the exchange of experience and information between the National Libraries of Iran and Malaysia, she continued that Iran’s measures during the outbreak of the Coronavirus to digitize a large number of resources and making them available had been significant, and according to Iran’s experience in this regard, information exchange could be appropriate. Ismail, referring to the digitization of 13 million documents (1000 Title) in the National Library, added that the NLM had about 2 million members; in the last three months, 300,000 members had an online interaction with the National Library. She considered the use of technology in the current situation to prevent the transmission of Coronavirus. She pointed out that the best way to avoid in-person services in libraries was to separate the returned books from other books for a 24-to-72-hour period.
