Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
If you’ve been keeping record of your thoughts, feelings and daily activities during the coronavirus pandemic, they will be valuable to future generations.
Archives across the country, including Wright State University Librarys’ Special Collections and Archives, have put out a call for volunteers to document the pandemic.
The archive is collecting diaries, videos, electronic word files and photographs that tell the story of the Miami Valley.
Whenever national and international events impact people locally, the archive collects stories and experiences from people who are living through it, said Dawne Dewey, head of special collections and archives at Wright State University.
Milton Wright kept a diary from 1857 to 1917, making daily entries and summarizing each year’s highlights and providing a window into the past. Wright State University Librarys’ Special Collections and Archives would like people to donate their journals and photos documenting the coronavirus pandemic.
“Most people don’t think their stories are important, but someday we’re all going to look back on this and it will be interesting to read people’s accounts. Those kinds of reflections are going to be really important to people in the future.”
A century ago it was common for people to keep a diary providing us with a reflection of the past, Dewey said. But today we communicate differently — with blogs, Facebook and email — making that information harder for archivists to capture.
