Presentation

Connecting Communities and Building Collections: Archiving a Community’s Resilience during a Pandemic

---

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Miami University created the “Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic Project,” that established an archival collection centered around those in the local and institutional community. Participants were invited to create their record in any medium they could to express their feelings and experiences throughout the pandemic. While creating the project, the organizers faced various obstacles. Preservation planning became a daunting task, given the variety of physical and digital objects submitted to the collection that could be closed for up to fifty years. Through support from multiple stakeholders, the project coordinators were able to overcome these challenges, resulting in a collection born completely through volunteers representing the resilience of the community in a time of global crisis.

This presentation will explore the opportunities and challenges presented by actively building a crowdsourced collection, and how the speakers minimized risks in its creation and preservation. Though the presentation will be framed around the experiences of a single institution, attendees will leave equipped with the knowledge to develop a community-born archival collection. Takeaways will include legal considerations around copyright and privacy issues. Attendees will also learn how to address preservation challenges working with archival collections that will be sealed for a significant amount of time.

How to Cite:

Hoffman, K., Makarowski, R., Myers, C. & Johnson, J., (2021) “Connecting Communities and Building Collections: Archiving a Community’s Resilience during a Pandemic”, MAC Annual Meeting Presentations 2021(1).