The world’s largest library has launched a new campaign to record and archive millions of COVID-19 pandemic stories.
The Library of Congress is calling for many different American voices to share their experiences for posterity.
“You can read something in a history book, but to hear someone’s voice tell of their lived experience is immensely powerful,” said Nicole Saylor, director of the library’s American Folklife Center, which is leading the project.
Curators and researchers at the library have teamed up with the nonprofit group StoryCorps to gather and archive countless oral narratives.
People who want to capture their story can use several different methods through StoryCorps. The group has a suite of self-directed documentation systems and recording sites around the country, Saylor said.
When the oral narration is complete, storytellers can save their accounts in the Library of Congress’ archive.
Saylor said every story collected is just as important as the next.
“Our goal is to capture the stories of people who survived, to honor those who lost their lives to this disease, and talk with front line health care workers,” she said. “We want to get a good geographical spread on this, with a lot of different communities and perspectives into the archives.”
The library has other similar first-person storytelling projects to preserve history, including topics on Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
Archivists are in the early stages of collecting pandemic tales, which will take the next three years to complete. Saylor said the goal now is to get as many people as possible to recount their stories.
“You can really tell the story about the American experience though one person’s story,” Saylor told WTOP. “The push that we’re pursing right now is to get people engaged in doing their stories.”
If you would like to tell your COVID-19 pandemic story, go to the StoryCorps website.