Category Archives: Crowdsourced

coronarchiv

coronarchiv is a joint public history project of the Universities of Hamburg, Bochum and Gießen in cooperation with the Medical History Museum Hamburg and the Museum for Hamburg History.

The aim of the coronarchiv is the continuous collection, archiving, contextualization and long-term provision of personal memories and found objects related to the corona crisis. In principle, this can be anything that is available digitally or can be digitized: from texts such as diaries, letters, e-mails, poems, articles in newspapers and magazines, shopping lists, job reports, notices, warnings, regulations on photos, drawings, pictures, Videos, notices, chats and social media posts up to voice messages, songs and readings. Submissions are being accepted through May 15, 2020.

Maryland During COVID-19: Stories from Baltimore Teens

During these homebound weeks in Baltimore, there is a unique opportunity to share, learn, and communicate how different generations respond to this ongoing COVID-19 health crisis in Baltimore, the United States, and the world. Maryland During COVID-19: Stories from Baltimore Teens, a project of the Public Library of Baltimore: Enoch Pratt Free Library, documents that response by collecting first-hand accounts through oral history interviews between teens and their parents or guardians, in the style of StoryCorps. Stories will be cataloged, archived, and made publicly available online through the Pratt Library’s Special Collections Dept.

Covid-19 Project (Brooklyn Historical Society)

Brooklyn Historical Society is actively collecting material related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which is impacting daily life on an unprecedented scale. Their goal is to document and preserve the collective experiences of our community during the crisis, including the health, economic, social, political, and religious impacts of COVID-19 on our borough. 

They invite and encourage the public to share your thoughts, stories, and the material you have collected or created related to COVID-19 in Brooklyn.

CONTRIBUTING DIGITAL CONTENT

If you are interested in sharing digital content such as photographs, videos, and audio clips, please use our online submission form here. Digital content may be shared through our online collections platforms and social media accounts.

CONTRIBUTING PHYSICAL ITEMS

BHS is very interested in collecting physical items in the future. Due to BHS’s temporary closure, it cannot accept physical materials at this time. When it re-opens to the public, BHS will provide information about how to drop-off or mail your items.

Suggested materials, physical or digital, include:

  • Artifacts
  • Artistic reflections (e.g. rainbow artwork)
  • Business and restaurant signage about closures, fundraising initiatives, social distancing measures, and amended menus
  • Government issued posters, reports, and decrees concerning public health and safety
  • Grocery store lists and receipts
  • Housing-related material, such as rent abatements, strikes and eviction notices
  • Local and mutual aid organizations’ flyers, newsletters, mass mailings, records, and reports
  • Lesson plans and other educational material related to remote learning and homeschooling
  • Personal correspondence and journals
  • Photographs of closed businesses, hospitals and temporary medical facilities, social distancing, homeschooling, and religious activity
  • Video and audio diaries, journal entries, and reflections

Submitted materials will be reviewed by Collections staff, and may be added to our permanent collections. Items may be shared on social media. Material mailed to BHS without prior communication with BHS staff cannot be added to our collections or returned to sender. If you have questions about this collecting initiative, or BHS’s terms and conditions, please reach out to library@brooklynhistory.org.

ENDURANCE: Collecting Letters from MIT in the Age of COVID-19

Created by MIT’s History of MIT course, the ENDURANCE project is intended to document the impact of the crisis on students in the classes of 2020 (which would have graduated this year) and the class of 1970 (scheduled to have its 50th reunion at commencement). Students and alumni can upload a photo of a handwritten letter, a typed letter, an audio recording of their voice reading their letter aloud, a photo of artwork, or anything else.  Suggested questions to answer include:

  • How did you spend that last insane week?
  • How are you organizing your life now? How do you deal with both the changes, and the way things are going now?
  • What is important about physical presence? What or who do you miss/need about or from an actual campus?
  • What is/was on your mind? What are the stories of your experiences that you want others to remember going forward?

A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of Covid-19

A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of Covid-19 (covid19.omeka.net/) invites people to act not just as historians, but as chroniclers, recorders, memoirists, and image collectors, assembling what future historians might need to write about and understand this historical moment. People can share their experience and impressions of how CoVid19 has affected their lives, from the mundane to the extraordinary, including the ways things haven’t changed at all. Contributions can include text, images, video, tweets, texts, Facebook posts, Instagram or Snapchat memes, and screenshots of the news and emails–anything that speaks to paradoxes of the moment. 

Initiated by historians at Arizona State University, the project has emerged as a curatorial consortium that includes faculty and graduate students from around the United States and the world.

Rhode Island Covid-19 Archive

A Community Collecting Initiative hosted by the Rhode Island Historical Society and Providence Public Library, Rhode Island Covid-19 Archive (ricovidarchive.org/) invites Rhode Islanders to contribute stories, images, and recordings that reflect their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The site includes a guide to personal archiving.

New-York Historical Society

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New-York Historical Society has launched History Responds: Collecting during the Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic

Their efforts, which focus on New York and the surrounding region, seek to document all aspects of the crisis, including the heroic efforts of medical personnel; the plight of the victims; the effects on businesses, schools, and cultural groups; and the creativity borne of isolation. They invite and encourage donations from the community.

  • The Patricia D. Klingenstein Library of the New-York Historical Society is gathering paper ephemera that reflect all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and how people are dealing with it. Formats include: flyers, circulars, handbills, postcards, small signs, small posters, application forms, mass mailing charity requests, emails and print-outs of emails. These can be mailed to:

New-York Historical Society
Attn: Library History Responds program
170 Central Park West
New York, New York 10024

(The Library is unable to return unaccessioned materials.)

Digital items can be emailed to:
NYHSLibrary2020Collect@nyhistory.org

  • The Museum division is collecting objects and images and the stories connected to them. These may include: tools for health and medicine; household items that reflect life under quarantine and social distancing measures; new products created by business and industry; artwork placed in public view; and items that represent community projects and initiatives.

To submit objects and images (or a group of objects and paper) for consideration, please complete our Object Donation Form and email it to historyresponds@nyhistory.org along with related photos.

  • The Education department invites youth to keep and share diary entries on their experiences with the coronavirus pandemic. Students can record their diaries in whatever form they would like—digital, analog, video, voice memo—and share them.

Diary entries can be completed through this form or emailed to teens@nyhistory.org.

Diaries can also be mailed to:
New-York Historical Society
Attn: Teen Programs
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024

Museum of the City of New York

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For nearly a century, the Museum of the City of New York has been documenting New York City’s stories regardless of their nature.
At any given moment, there are a myriad of stories playing out on our streets, in public and private institutions, and in our homes. The Museum wants to share your stories as experienced through the lens of this COVID-19 crisis, arguably one of the most challenging times in New York City history.

MCNY would like to see how the entire city, across all five boroughs, is viewing this moment in our collective history. We invite everyone to share photos—taken from an appropriately socially-distanced perspective—documenting personal experiences during this challenging time. Post those images on Instagram using the hashtag #CovidStoriesNYC, and tag @MuseumOfCityNY.

Museum staff will review the images on a rolling basis, selecting images that reflect on the impact of this event on life in this dense, creative, and resilient city to repost on our social media feed and other digital channels.

Please Note:
MCNY cannot accept physical objects at this time. That said, if you have an object that you think would help the Museum’s collection tell the story of COVID-19 in New York to future generations, please email a photo of it to collections@mcny.org. Unfortunately, MCNY is only able to reply to emails regarding materials we are considering for acquisition, and requests that you do not mail any items to the Museum. Until there is guidance from health officials, for the health and safety of our staff, MCNY will not be accepting physical objects from the public.