Document delivering services: a strategy to support research in Mexican universities in the pandemic by COVID-19

The purpose of this paper is to report and to regulate the users’ documentary necessities of six Mexican universities involved, in a cooperative manner and during the period of confinement by SARS-CoV-2, through the Document Delivery Service (DDS).

A diagnostic was conducted within the participating institutions that considered the information resources and sources, documents requested and the number of users per institution, which were counted daily for one month. This research used documentary and quantitative methods.

The authors determined that DDS is a reliable service for information supply although it is going to be necessary to adjust legal schemes and interlibrary loan policies to develop a process and to adapt this one to the current information services in the future or “in our new normality”; DDS will have a high impact on the conformation of networks of librarian cooperation.

This study exposed the importance of DDS as a relevant service to provide information on demand by using information and communication technologies, which is a safe way to operate, avoiding exposure to physical contact, ensuring the continuity of research processes in the communities and always monitoring and promoting the copyright.