The COVID-19 Williams Experience Project: seeking submissions

In light of these extraordinary times, we in the Libraries, in collaboration with the Davis Center, are interested in documenting the wide range of recent Williams’ experiences. This documentation, called The Covid-19 Williams Experience Project, will be collected, preserved for posterity, and made accessible by Special Collections.

We are reaching out to you as students, staff, and faculty to submit your documentation.

In addition to submissions from staff, faculty, and students, The Williams Experience Project is seeking submissions from alumni in exceptional situations and/or who are working on the frontlines of the pandemic.

Photo of Boston

Objectives: Special Collections seeks to document, archive, and preserve the vast array of Williams’ experiences, wherever your location may be during these unusual times, in a variety of mediums. Examples: voice memos, social media, websites, memes, emails, screenshots, photos of your “work from home” environment, video, art, zines, journaling, photography with text, or a blog. This documentation will be available in Special Collections for future researchers.

Framework: As we all have subjective experiences, the framework is open — you decide. Different mediums and rhythms work for different people. You may want to submit a collection of images once or you may create a journal entry or artwork 3-5 times a week that you share via website URL or Google Drive. Students already participating in the project are submitting screenshots of their Instagram, creating blogs, writing journal entries with photos and video, and others are recording audio.

We are aware your submissions are special spaces we are granted access to, let us know if the materials require restrictions or an embargo period.

You always own your copyright! We encourage you to use a Creative Commons license for your submissions! https://creativecommons.org/.

Photo of library stacks

Ways of documenting the experience and how to submit:

  1. screenshots of memes, social media, or your creations alone or associated with text (share here)
  2. journal via Twitter/ Facebook/ Instagram or blog
  3. (share here so we can web archive)
  4. video or audio alone or associated with text (share here)
  5. websites (share here)
  6. coursework (share here)
  7. voice memos (how to create a voice memo, share here)
  8. photographs alone or associated with text (share here)
  9. digital or physical artwork alone or associated with text (share here)
  10. if you are interested in creating an individual zine or a community zine based on the current experience, email Hale Polebaum-Freeman, reference and first-year outreach librarian, at [email protected])
  11. we are also open to other ideas!

If you have general or specific questions about the project please reach out to Jessika Drmacich, records manager & digital resources archivist, at [email protected].