In an effort to capture and preserve the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our community, the West Virginia and Regional History Center is asking for volunteers to document their experiences of this extraordinary time. The WVRHC is inviting WVU students, faculty, and staff of all campuses and WVU Medicine to submit open and honest personal accounts of their lives during the coronavirus outbreak. These accounts, be they diaries, audio recordings, photographs, or scrapbooks, will help future generations understand the effect the pandemic had on our community. We will accept physical materials, so don’t let format constrain your creativity! We're happy to answer any additional questions you may have. You can reach us at: wvrhcref@mail.wvu.edu
Your material will be included in an online exhibition documenting the impact of COVID-19 on the WVU community. If you decide, at any time, that you would prefer not to have your material online, you can email us at: wvrhcref@mail.wvu.edu. There will be a way to opt-out in the online exhibition as well.
In need of some inspiration? Check out the following projects:
Why You Should Start a Coronavirus Diary
Your Maps of Life Under Lockdown
The art, and therapy, of the diary in a time of COVID-19
Grand Valley State University COVID-19 Journaling Project
Photo Series 'Queerantine' Offers A Front-Porch View Of Life During A Pandemic
Art in a Time of Pandemic
“A keen vision and feeling of all ordinary life”: Pandemic Journaling in the History Classroom
Creating a collage -- and the related New York Times article
Interested in doing an oral history? Read over the following for sample questions and tips on how to do an oral history over Zoom or with your phone. Be sure to save your oral history in one of the following three formats before submitting it: WAV, AIFF, or MP3
COVID-19 Sample Oral History Questions from Tufts University
For larger collections of material, please use our standard Submission Form
Send physical materials to:
COVID-19 Stories project
c/o West Virginia and Regional History Center
P.O. Box 6069
1549 University Ave.
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506-6069
Please fill out the online submission form even if you're sending physical materials.
While we want you to share your experiences, personal health information covered under HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), should only be included if it is your own personal information. Please do not include the personal health information of any other person.
Want to learn about how folks lived during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and the materials the WVRHC holds documenting this era in West Virginia and here at WVU? Curious how your materials could be used by historians in the future?
1918: Looking Back at World War I and the Spanish Flu
A century apart, pandemics have parallels in WVU's response
In the electronic submission form, you will be asked to electronically sign a Deed of Gift. For your convenience, we've included the text below.
This Deed of Gift is made between you, the donor, and the WVU Foundation, Inc. (“Foundation”), a not-for-profit, charitable, education foundation, Federal ID 55-6017181, for the benefit of the West Virginia & Regional History Center, WVU Libraries.
By submitting this work, you grant West Virginia University Libraries the non-exclusive right to reproduce, transform(as defined below), and/or distribute your submissions (including the abstracts and metadata) worldwide in any medium or format and royalty-free, including, but not limited to, publication over the internet. If you accept this license, you or the copyright owner still retain the copyright to your works.
You agree that the WVU Libraries may transform the submissions to any medium or format, known now or in the future, for the purpose of preservation.
You agree that the WVU Libraries may keep more than one copy of these submissions for purposes of security, back-up, and preservation. You represent that the submissions are your original work, and/or that you have the right to grant the rights contained in this license. You also represent that your submissions do not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon anyone's copyright and agree to indemnify and hold WVU Libraries harmless from any claims of copyright infringement based on your submissions.
If the submissions contain material for which you do not hold copyright, you represent that you have obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner to grant the WVU Libraries the rights required by this license, and that such third-party owned material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text or content of the submission.
You agree that the WVU Libraries may make such changes to the items’ metadata (i.e. descriptive information) as deemed necessary by WVU Libraries staff to make the item more accessible.
Remember, you can reach a trained counselor through the Carruth Center or the Crisis Text Line by texting WVU to 74174. It is free, confidential, and available 24/7.
