Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic: Sharing the Experiences of the CCSU Community

The Elihu Burritt Library and the Department of History are launching a project to document the experience of CCSU students, faculty, and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. All members of the campus community are invited to contribute their experiences of the pandemic through journals, photos, videos, and other documentation.

How to Participate

We are interested in your stories about all aspects of how COVID-19 has affected your life as a member of the CCSU community, including: the shift to remote instruction and learning, studying and working from home, working at on-campus and off-campus jobs, the impact of closing residence halls and other campus services, the ways you and your friends and family are staying in touch during this period of social distancing and self-quarantine, the emotional impact of the pandemic, and so on.

How you record your thoughts and experiences is up to you. You can contribute journal entries, save your emails and social media posts, provide photos and/or videos of life as you see it, write poetry, or create artworks in any medium.

Include only what you feel comfortable sharing, and practice distancing recommendations set by the CDC.

The Submission Process

Please use this form to submit your items. You will be able to agree to allow the Burritt Library to preserve your submission, and you will receive important information about the copyright and use of your content.

We will accept only digital files at this time. We can accept a wide variety of file formats, including photos (jpg, png, tiff), videos (mp4, mov), audio (mp3, wav), text (txt, pdf, docx, doc), presentations (pptx, ppt), and spreadsheets (xls, xlsx). If you are unsure about something in particular, or need to submit your materials another way, please email bmatzke@ccsu.edu and we will assist.

Submissions will not be available to the public immediately, and not all submissions will be added to future collections. Materials will be reviewed by our staff, and selected files will be preserved as a permanent part of our digital collections. Some materials may be included in the Connecticut Digital Archive.

If you submit photographs or videos with other people in them, we will also need their permission so that we can preserve and share the recordings in the future. Please have any friends, family members, or community members also fill out the submission form if you wish to record with them. If we do not receive releases from all participants, we cannot preserve the materials. But only one person will need to attach the files to the form — co-creators can simply fill in their personal information along with a description of the materials.

Related Resources

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Katie Howell of J. Murrey Atkins Library, University of North Carolina Charlotte for allowing us to adapt text and ideas from UNCC’s Contribute Your Stories of the COVID-19 Outbreak.

Share your pandemic story