Humboldt COVID-19 Archive Project

Imagine you are a researcher 100 years from now, try to understand how COVID-19 impacted our community.  What types of sources would you like to use?  This project aims to document our experience in Humboldt County during this pandemic by creating an archive of what life in Humboldt looks like during this time. 

Your experiences and feelings about today can become a part of history tomorrow.

This project is organized by Humboldt State University Library Special Collections. The goal of this project is to create an archive of a material that will be publicly available to researchers at HSU in the future. To do this, we need your help.  We would like to collect materials that you are creating right now to document this time. 

There are many formats of material that we will accept, below is a listing of just a few types of materials we would like to add to the community archive. 

• Diaries are a very useful tool for researchers and we have many examples in HSU Special Collections.  Not sure what to write about in your diary? Wright State has some excellent questions to think about as you document your life in words. Video diaries are another useful way to share your experiences. 
• Do you have photographs of people waiting in line to enter the grocery store? Or maybe images of empty playgrounds in your neighborhood? Photographs provide an excellent snapshot of life during a particular time. 
• Social media posts are often the most common way we stay connected to our community. Grab a screenshot of one of your posts and send it to Special Collections to add it to the archive. 
• Flyers, both digital and physical, can help tell the story of how programming and events changed during this time. 
• Record a video that tells your story of how your life is impacted. 
• We can accept digital copies of artwork you are creating. 
• The library can archive websites so that the information can last much longer than the site remains online to the public. 
• Other formats are welcome!  We want to celebrate and document Humboldt County's creativity. 

Submissions may be in the form of physical objects or digital files, or both.

There are several ways you can contribute.  If you have physical materials (diaries, print flyers, etc.) please contact Carly Marino (carly.marino@humboldt.edu) to schedule an appointment to drop off material once the shelter in place order for Humboldt County is lifted.  You can also submit digital material by sending an email to Carly or using this Google form.

With your permission, we will be sharing a selection of submissions on Facebook and Instagram.

Thank you for helping us with this project and shaping our shared history.