Pandemic Religion: A Digital Archive

Collecting Projects

Item Set

Items

• Pandemic Religion: A Digital Archive

  A collecting project that is actively receiving contributions of digital material from religious communities and from individuals. Asking for contributions mostly with attention to how religious practice has changed, communications within religious communities, and decisions made by these communities. Users can submit via an online form that captures information about the file as well, including date of creation, specific religious community and denomination, and location. The general public can view material that has been designated by the contributor and by staff review as fit for publication; other material will be available only to researchers. Collaboration with Jewish archives, including Yeshiva University, Capital Jewish Museum, and William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.

• 24 Hours in a Time of Change

  Curators from several Smithsonian museums proposed an institution-wide collecting effort to document experiences from across the United States in a single day. This became "24 Hours in a Time of Change," and people across the nation contributed to the website by following a list of prompts. The National Museum of American History also formed a Rapid Response Collecting Task Force to collect objects, photographs, and documents that address topics such as medical procedures, philanthropic and civic responses, business practices, and culture. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is seeking digital materials, with particular attention to forging connections with communities that may not be online. Shared via institutional newsletters and on social media and covered in local and national news.

• COVID-19 and the Conservative Movement

  Starting with a focus on the community of the Jewish Theological Seminary, this initiative is seeking to document the Conservative Movement's experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Librarians at JTS have reached out to the university's community, including students, faculty, administration, alumni, and members of the board of directors. They have also made contact with affiliate organizations in the Conservative Movement, including the Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogue, Camp Ramah, and the Cantors Assembly. Collecting both personal documents and organizational records. Receiving submissions by email at covidarchive@jtsa.edu.

• A Journal of the Plague Year: Jewish Melbourne

  This project is interested in the ways that the lives of individuals and families have been affected, the disruptions and adaptations to the daily and weekly cycles of Jewish life, the impact on schools and community organisations, educational and cultural programming, and on the celebration of Jewish holidays and memorial days. It is looking to collect both artifacts and personal reflections through voluntary submissions. The types of artifacts requested include: photographs and videos; social media posts and memes; ads for, links to, and videos of community events; running sheets or any behind-the-scenes materials for holding events; emails, texts, or articles related to Jewish events. The prompts for personal reflections to submit include writing about how COVID has affected Jewish holiday observances and the adaptations that have been made to Jewish practice. There is an online portal for submissions and the contributions are reviewed and published by a curatorial/research team at the ACJC.

• Haggadah: Telling Your Story in the Time of Coronavirus

  This project is collecting digital material in a variety of file forms, including text, images, and audio and visual files. It is interested in documenting social media posts, oral histories, organization announcements, and synagogue services streamed online. The geographic reach of the project extends throughout Washington State, attempting to engage individuals, including medical workers, students, and Jewish organizations. It engages different constituencies as "digital curators" (e.g., students working on students' material collection and tech industry members working to reach others in the field). Synagogues were contacted at the project's start and will be followed up with over a period of time. It has been publicized online by the institution, in the local Jewish news, and in synagogue newsletters.

• Black Carolinians Speak: Portraits of a Pandemic

  A mandate to document the experience of Black residents of South Carolina for inclusion at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Collecting written testimonies of personal experience (diaries, letters, essays, poetry), artwork, photographs, videos, screenshots of social media posts, and testimony from children and teens. There are plans to follow up with oral history interviews after the pandemic has ended and in-person story collection is possible. The project has received extensive coverage in local news. As of June 13, the collection includes 13 interviews with doctors, elected officials, and everyday people and 45 submissions of text and images.

• Coronavirus Chronicles: Sharing Stories Through Isolation

  This transnational database, started by University of Pennsylvania history graduate students, collects stories about Covid-19 and its impact on everyday life. The project is accepting primary sources in any digital format, but with a focus on three collecting streams: diaries, photos and videos, and poetry. Promoted on social media.

• Bronx Covid-19 Project

  Fordham students and faculty are conducting interviews with Bronx residents. The initiative seeks to capture the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on Bronx residents, especially people of color, poor people, and immigrants. The interview framework has incorporated changing issues, namely responses to racially discriminatory policing of social distancing measures and rising protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death. The archive consists of oral history interviews conducted by video conferencing technology.

• History Responds

  Building on rapid response collecting methods developed in the wake of September 11, Occupy Wall Street, and the 2017 Women's March, curators at the New-York Historical Society began efforts to collect objects, images, artworks, and ephemera for future research and inclusion in exhibitions. The process to donate materials begins with filling out an inquiry form to share information about the object. Covid-19 material is currently being collected alongside material documenting Black Lives Matter and other protests under the purview of this project. Collecting is geographically focused on New York and the surrounding region.

• A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project

  Starting with Asian/Pacific/American communities in New York City, New York University plans to conduct oral history interviews for the dual purposes of documentation and of asserting subjectivity of Asian/Pacific Americans. Interest in recording experiences of anti-Asian violence and xenophobia and issues from the perspective of healthcare and low-wage service workers who are disproportionately immigrants. The desire is to collect recorded interviews and digital copies of documents now, to be supplemented by formal oral histories when in-person interviewing is possible.

• OneWorld COVID-19 Special Collection

  This collection attempts to reflect the experiences of individual Chinese-Americans and efforts in the community to address the current crisis. Digital files (including photographs, letters, journals, messages, videos, and oral histories) can be submitted by email. Specific interest in documenting anti-Asian acts. Publicized through institutional email announcements, Chinese community news outlets, as well as social media and New York-area news.

• Letters from 6' Away

  Like other collecting efforts of this archive, this initiative seeks to capture the diversity of South Asian American experiences. Individuals are invited to write a letter to themselves for inclusion in the archival collection.

• Your Story Our Story: Objects of Comfort

  The Museum’s Your Story, Our Story project began in 2013 to build a dynamic online collection about migration and cultural identity through user-submitted stories of objects and traditions. In April 2020, we launched the Objects of Comfort initiative, to collect stories about objects connected to our identity that bring comfort in the current moment. Through these stories, the Museum builds bigger narratives about who Americans are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. The collections focus on themes of foodways, religion, fun, work or education, and attire. These materials are added to the museum's digital collection and stored with a stable link for access in the future. This collecting initiative has been promoted through partnerships with other museums, with teachers and educators (who have the capacity to build a sub-collection for their class in this project) and on social media.

• The COVID-19 Oral History Project

  Accepting both crowdsourced oral histories and formal oral histories, this initiative is a partner project with The Journal of the Plague Year. Influenced by rapid response collecting, this project has been driven by students in the IUPUI Public History Program to capture the experiences of individual people in Indiana and beyond during the pandemic. Embracing open access and open source frameworks, the interviews added to the collection will be shared with researchers and with the public to help individuals and communities interpret this pandemic.

• Covid-19: First Person Histories

  As a part of the project on the history of psychiatry, this collection links to first-person accounts about Covid-19 that have been published and are available online. These include the experiences of writers, healthcare personnel, students, restaurant workers, travelers, and others. Maintained by Megan Wolff, a Senior Staff Associate in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College with the intention of serving as a resource for current readers and future scholars. Items can be added by contacting Megan Wolff.

• COVID-19 Impact Studies: Building Resilient Jewish Communities

  This project involves conducting online surveys of Jewish households to assist Jewish organizations in assessing the impact of the coronavirus in local communities and in addressing the needs of individuals and households. The surveys are conducted through cooperation with local Jewish federations in Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, DC, St. Louis, and Chicago. Data will be presented to federations in the aggregate.

• Preserving Quarantine History

  Open to all who identify with the Jewish community in Southeastern Wisconsin, this initiative accepts records in digital formats. The project is interested in personal perspectives, poems, pictures of artwork, videos, oral histories, and other forms of documentation. Items can be submitted by Google Forms accompanied with descriptions and information about the contributor.

• JHSUM Covid-19 Stories

  This project is collecting video interviews from members of the Minnesota Jewish community using the web-based platform TheirStory. Respondents are asked to reflect on how Covid-19 has changed their lives, how their religious practice has changed, and what they want future generations to know about this experience.

• Rauh Jewish Archives

  This project is drawing contributions from Jewish institutions (congregations, organizations, charities, and businesses) in Western Pennsylvania. Of 126 Jewish organizations identified in the region, archivists determined that 60 are actively creating documentation. The project prioritizes the capture of email newsletters (1,000 so far) and web pages (600 so far) and is considering future individual submission of materials or oral history collecting . The initiative has been taking place without much publicity.

• COVID-19 Project

  This collection seeks to reflect the varied ways that Brooklynites were impacted by and responded to the coronavirus crisis. Materials to be collected include artifacts, artworks, signs from businesses, government-issued posters, grocery lists and receipts, housing-related documentation, communications from mutual aid organizations, remote education materials, correspondence, journals, and diaries. Texts, images, recorded sound, and videos can be submitted as digital content through an online form. Physical objects are not currently being accepted, but the staff of the historical society is accepting photographs of objects to be considered for donation when the institution reopens to the public.

• Our Streets, Our Stories

  Individuals can volunteer to be interviewed or suggest someone for a remote interview. Our Streets, Our Stories has an interest in capturing stories of healthcare and essential workers, teachers, students and parents, older adults, and persons who are incarcerated and their families. Brooklyn Public Library staff members then conduct the remote interviews. This project builds on the preexisting local oral history project Our Streets, Our Stories. The project has been shared broadly on social media and in local news. To contribute, you can email ososproject@bklynlibrary.org or call (917) 426-1271.

• NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive

  This project was formulated to record initial interviews with 200 New Yorkers whose work or situation contributes to a more complete perspective on the pandemic's impact. The project emphasizes including doctors, nurses, home health aides, funerary workers, doulas, parents, homeless people, organizers, artists, immigrants, teachers, other essential workers, and public officials. Thirty oral history interviewers identified participants and conducted the interviews. An additional survey and collecting effort aimed to reach a broader sample of the city's population.

• Queens Memory COVID-19 Project

  Queens Public Library has invited submissions by voicemail, on social media, and through online forms. The open-ended invitation to document an account of one's experience in Queens during the pandemic and to conduct oral history interviews is motivated by the desire to create a testament to the struggles and resiliency of the borough. Informational flyers were produced in eight different languages with instructions for how to contribute to the collection, including by phone and online.

• Coronavirus and the Houston Jewish Community (American Jewish Life)

  This collecting project is focused on the Houston Jewish community and the impact that the coronavirus has had on Jewish life and religious practices. The effort has been publicized through institutional channels and local Jewish news. Collecting born-digital materials (audiovisual, still images, documents) and posted publicly online by local synagogues, Jewish institutions, and Jewish-owned restaurants. It involves conducting interviews with local Jewish professionals, chosen to get "as wide and as representative a scope as possible."

• COVID-19 Jewish Ephemera Collection

  Accepting submissions of digital ephemera, i.e., "items people would not necessarily think to keep, but that will later define our communities and our culture for generations." Global in scope with twenty-five countries represented so far in the collection, with most material coming from the United States and Israel. Framed as a "digital geniza," it is specifically requesting publicly circulated emails, memes, posters, synagogue timetables, institutional announcements, kosher restaurant menus, invitations, and advertisements. It has been publicized broadly in Jewish news sources, institutional blogs, personal networks, and personal and institutional social media channels. This collecting project is built upon efforts to collect physical and digital ephemera from Europe.