COVID: Experiences, Thoughts & Feelings

By Stephanie Milne-Lane, Processing Archivist and Records Manager smilnelane@willamette.edu

We are living in an unprecedented moment in history. Each of us is experiencing this pandemic in our own unique way. In line with our charge to collect, preserve and make available records of enduring value relating to Willamette University, the Archives and Special Collections invites you — Willamette students, staff and faculty — to submit original created works that capture your current experiences, thoughts, challenges and feelings.

Hatfield Library’s archivists and librarians will curate these submissions into a digital exhibition, “COVID: Experiences, Thoughts and Feelings.” This project is by and for our community. Eventually, the collection’s accessibility will broaden, so that decades from now, it can be used for exploration and scholarship.

Express yourself in a medium that best encapsulates your unique lived experience including sketches, audio recordings of music, videos of dance performances, photographs, poems, stories and essays. Full guidelines and the submission forms are available online. Make your submissions before May 8.

If you’re not ready for your submission to be shared today, you may add it to a historical collection that won’t be released until 2025. Do not submit works you want to remain private. You retain the right to ask us to remove your submissions in the future.

If you’d like to make an anonymous submission, donate a physical item (e.g. written diary, sketch, etc.), or have other questions, please contact Processing Archivist and Records Manager Stephanie Milne-Lane.

Thank you for helping us preserve this moment in history.