Collecting Initiatives: Past Pandemics and COVID-19

The entries in this section of the bibliography feature collecting projects that document individual and community experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States. While there are hundreds of US collection projects currently in progress, the initiatives listed below (organized by state) have either partial or entire collections available online. This vetted list of collecting initiatives speaks to the range of institutions that are actively and conscientiously engaged in the preservation of this unique historical moment.

For a more expansive list of current US projects that have not yet made their materials available to the public, please see the Collecting Initiatives folder in our Historians and COVID-19 Zotero library. The 200+ collection projects featured in the Zotero library are tagged by state, institution type, collection type, and availability. Entries listed with a red dot are available now, while the entries without one have collections that are either coming soon or whose availability is unknown. The initiatives selected for inclusion in the Zotero library comply with responsible and ethical documentation practices.

For a global, unvetted list of collecting projects please see the International Federation for Public History’s “Mapping Public History Projects about COVID 19.”

 

Alaska

Kodiak History Museum, The Day by Day Project, Kodiak

Arizona

Arizona State University, A Journal of the Plague Year, Tempe

Arkansas

Central Arkansas Library System, Roberts Library, Documenting Arkansas’s COVID-19 Pandemic, Little Rock

California

California Historical Society, Tell Your Story-California During the Time of COVID-19, San Francisco

Hayward Area Historical Society, Five Item Challenge, Hayward

Colorado

Denver Public Library, COVID Collection, Denver

Connecticut

Connecticut Historical Society, Documenting Connecticut During COVID, Hartford

Greenwich Historical Society, Document Greenwich, Cos Cob

Delaware

Delaware Historical Society, COVID Chronicles Delaware, Wilmington

District of Columbia

DC Public Library, Archive This Moment DC, Washington

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, #MomentsofResilience, Washington

DC History Center, In Real Time: Collecting Current Events, Washington

Florida

Matheson History Museum, COVID-19 Community Archive, Gainesville

University of West Florida, COVID-19: The UWF Perspective, Pensacola

Georgia

Atlanta History Center, Corona Collective, Atlanta

Dekalb History Center, The COVID-19 Chronicles, Dekalb

Idaho

Idaho Historical Society, Idaho History at Home, Boise

Illinois

Cook Memorial Public Library District, CMPLD COVID-19 Digital Archive, Vernon Hills and Libertyville

Loyola University Chicago, Loyolans During the COVID-19 Crisis, Chicago

Poplar Creek Public Library District, COVID-19 Digital Collection, Streamwood

Indiana

Indiana Historical Society, Telling Your Story: Documenting COVID-19 in Indiana, Indianapolis

IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, The Covid-19 Oral History Project, Indianapolis

Mennonite Church USA Archives, Anabaptist History Today, Elkhart

Louisiana

University of New Orleans, The Ethel and Herman L. Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies,  Covid-19 Archive: New Orleans Collection, New Orleans

Maine

Bangor Public Library, Bangor Area COVID-19 Community Archives Project, Bangor

Belfast Free Library, Covid-19 Community Archives, Belfast

Bowdoin College Library, Documenting Bowdoin and Covid-19, Brunswick

College of the Atlantic Archives, COA COVID-19 Community Archive Project, Bar Harbor

Hartland Public Library, Newport Cultural Center, Pittsfield Public Library, Skowhegan Free Public Library, and Thompson Free Library, Heart of Maine Emergency Archive, Dover-Foxcroft

Maine Historical Society, Maine Memory Network: My Maine Stories, Portland

McArthur Public Library, the Biddeford Cultural and Heritage Center, and the Biddeford Historical Society, Biddeford COVID-19 Community Archive, Biddeford

Norway Memorial Library and West Paris Public Library, Western Maine Foothills Community Archive, West Paris

Ogunquit Memorial Library, Covid-19 Archive, Ogunquit

Patten Free Library, How’s Your Week Going? Share your Covid-19 Story, Bath

Portland Public Library, Isolating Together, Portland

University of Maine, Covid-19 Community Archive, Orono

University of Southern Maine, Franco-American Covid-19 Experiences in Maine Collection, Lewiston

University of Southern Maine, Signs of the Times: Documenting Covid-19 Signs in Southern Maine, Portland

Maryland

Maryland Center for History and Culture, Collecting in Quarantine, Baltimore

The Peale Center, Be Here Stories, Baltimore

Massachusetts

Historic New England, A Time to Remember: New England Home Life in the Covid 19 Pandemic, Boston

Massachusetts Historical Society, Witness to History: What Are Your COVID-19 Experiences?, Boston

Northeastern University and Suffolk University, Covid-19 Archive: Boston Collection, Boston

University of Massachusetts Boston University Archives, Documenting the UMass Boston Community’s Response to COVID-19, Boston

Worcester Historical Museum, Digital Worcester, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Covid-19 Chronicles, Worcester

Michigan

Grand Rapids Public Museum, Community Documentation Covid-19, Grand Rapids

Michigan History Center, Collecting Covid-19, Lansing

Minnesota

Anoka County Historical Society, History Happens Today: Your Covid-19 Life, Anoka

Minnesota Historical Society, History is Now: COVID-19 Health Crisis, St. Paul

University of Minnesota Duluth, Northeastern Minnesota COVID-19 Community Archive Project, Duluth

Nebraska

University of Nebraska at Omaha, Documenting COVID-19 in Omaha, Omaha

New Hampshire

Portsmouth Public Library, Community Diary: Portsmouth COVID-19 Pandemic 2020, Portsmouth

New Jersey

Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, Share Your Story, Madison

Rutgers University-Newark, Archiving COVID-19, Newark

New Mexico

University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, HSC and New Mexico Respond to COVID-19 Collections,  Albuquerque

New York

Brooklyn College, Brooklyn College Covid-19 Archive, Brooklyn

Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History, COVID-19 Project, Brooklyn

John Jermain Memorial Library, Community Journal Project, Sag Harbor

Museum of the City of New York, #CovidStoriesNYC, New York

New York University, Food and COVID-19 NYC Digital Archive and Collection, New York

North Brooklyn Mutual Aid, North Brooklyn Narratives, Brooklyn

Queens Public Library, Queens Memory COVID-19 Project, Queens

Rochester Institute of Technology, RIT Pandemic Journals, Rochester

Saratoga County Historical Society at Brookside Museum, #518RainbowHunt, Ballston Spa

Ohio

Case Western Reserve University, Kelvin Smith Library, COVID-19: Tell Your Story, Cleveland

Pennsylvania

Saint Vincent College Department of History and the Westmoreland Historical Society, Pandemic 2020: A Covid-19 Public History Project, Latrobe

Senator John Heinz History Center, Experiencing History: Collecting Materials Related to the Coronavirus and COVID-19 Response, Pittsburgh

Rhode Island

Brown University, Pembroke Center Oral History Project-COVID-19 Interviews, Providence

Rhode Island Historical Society, Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive, Providence

Utah

University of Utah, Utah COVID-19 Digital Collection, Salt Lake City

Virginia

The Valentine, Richmond Stories from Richmond Kids, Richmond

Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Share Your Story: Documenting COVID-19 in Virginia, Richmond

William & Mary Libraries, Documenting Life During COVID-19, Williamsburg

Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Chippewa Valley COVID-19 Archive Project, Eau Claire