MUNCIE, Ind. (NewsLink) -- COVID-19 affected many students this year and impacted the community of Ball State. To help acknowledge these circumstances, the Ball State University Libraries Archives and Special Collections set up a COVID-19 Pandemic Archive.
The purpose of the archive is to document student, faculty, and community member’s experiences during the pandemic. Sarah M. Allison, head of Archives User Engagement, seeks to help preserve materials received.
“The goal was really like I said to collect material about this time in history so that historians down the road when they look back at this time there is something for them to look at, you know individual people are a part of history and a part of this time,” Allison said.
The COVID-19 archive is a place for students to express their feelings and make their voices heard.
Telling the experiences of the pandemic can help future generations understand the struggles that people went through. This archive is a place for a local community to share their feelings, not just from a national outlook.
“It is important to think about being a part of history and this time and really allowing your experience and how you feel about this time in some form to be expressed and archived and kept for future generations to look at,” Allison said.
The archive is partnered with the Everyday Life in Middletown Project and the Muncie Public Library. The project will collaborate to preserve videos, documents, photography and artwork during the global pandemic. The archive is a way for students and community members to self-express and share their stories.
The content will be entered into the Stoeckel Archive of Local History Collection at Ball State University Libraries Archives and Special Collections. You can submit your materials by visiting here.
If you are having trouble submitting materials to the archive, email smallison@bsu.edu.
