The aim of this research notebook is to build an open access reference library of humanities and social sciences likely to help a wide public to better understand the major changes that societies around the world are undergoing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. It consists of reading notes that summarize in an accessible way the content of the selected publications and explain why they are important in the current context. The notebook complements a Zotero library where bibliographic references of publications are stored. The notebook is open to contributions from the entire research community in the humanities and social sciences and is managed by the OPERAS coordination team and volunteers.