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Information Needs of Vulnerable Groups in the Time of COVID-19: The Theoretical Framework

The COVID-19 pandemic has been considered to be a strong social stressor and professional and scientific community mutually agree that these who were vulnerable are now more vulnerable than ever. The professionals mutually agree while new technical solutions are indispensable to surmount pandemic challenges, especially knowing that the scenario of the second wave has become a reality, additional effort is needed. The support services for vulnerable have to remain operational and upgraded on three different levels. The first level concerns dissemination of information, the second access to already established services including the access to justice and the third level is related to prevention of vulnerable group rights’ violation. In order to access the services in the time of COVID-19, skills and knowledge to assess the information have never been more important. News-manipulation, fake and unverified information have become an extremely dangerous social phenomenon that obstructs the source evaluation process in terms of reliability and relevance. Thus, each individual person, and particularly, a vulnerable group member is faced with the dilemma of finding efficient ways to protect himself from fake news and to receive a relevant and credible information. Certainly, one of the possible solutions is to develop awareness about the importance of information literacy (henceforth: IL) and improvement in information skills of each individual in society. The authors firmly believe that the academic library should play a prominent role in this respect.

Information Needs of Vulnerable Groups ; Time of COVID-19 ; Theoretical Framework

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