Community Archiving Project aims to document the Penn community's experience with COVID-19

Penn's COVID-19 Community Archiving Project hopes to document and preserve the Penn community's direct experience with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project is collecting submissions from students, faculty, staff, and alumni that can be used by future historians and scholars seeking insight into life during this time period, Penn Today reported. Submissions can include art, photographs, videos such as recordings of classes and workouts, journal entries, homeschool schedules, and screenshots of social media posts among other forms of media.

Acting University Archivist J.M. Duffin said the project was created by the University Archives and Records Center after he was inspired by a similar archival project being done at Columbia University. 

“Our hope is to try and get as many voices as possible from a wide variety of the whole width and breadth of the Penn community to provide a fuller understanding of how the pandemic has affected the university," Duffin said. 

Duffin said the University has already started to receive a few submissions from staff members, alumni, and students on different aspects of how the pandemic has affected their lives.  

Since the center needs time to review all of the submissions and post on the University Archives website, Duffin said the information from the project may not be available until next year.

Although he said the project will go on for as long as the pandemic exists and the archives do not plan to stop accepting submissions, Duffin encouraged people to share their stories while they are still clear and vivid.