How has your life changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? Have you been keeping a journal or expressing your thoughts and feelings in artwork? Or perhaps you have photographs that show how your life has changed due to the pandemic. Every one of us in the Augusta University community has been affected by COVID-19 and every one of us has a story to tell – a personal narrative. We invite you to share your personal narrative. All members of the Augusta University community – students, staff, and faculty, and employees of the AU Medical Center – are invited to share.
The University Libraries Heritage Unit’s research guide COVID-19 Project: Documenting Personal Narratives provides information on how to submit your personal narrative, which will be housed in Scholarly Commons, the institutional repository for Augusta University.
The guide also includes writing prompts for composing your COVID-19 narrative, but you are not limited by our suggestions. Your personal narrative may be in the form of an essay, poems, or a series of journal entries. Or perhaps you have photographs or have created an artwork expressing your COVID-19 story. The COVID-19 Project: Documenting Personal Narratives includes information on acceptable file formats.
This project is limited to the Augusta University community and each submission requires a digital agreement form that must be completed. The Augusta-Richmond County Library System has a COVID-19 Community Documentation Project while the University of Georgia Libraries is collecting stories from Georgia residents. More information about these and other projects can be found on the “Other COVID-19 Archiving Projects” page of the research guide.
Later on, as Augusta University returns to campus and the new normal, the Heritage Unit will accept physical items to retain and preserve. See the “Donations of Physical Items” page.
For questions or more information, please contact Maranda Christy on the Summerville Campus at mchristy@augusta.edu or Renée Sharrock on the Health Sciences Campus at rsharrock@augusta.edu.
About the Heritage Unit: The University Libraries has a department devoted to the preservation and archival keeping of the campuses’ unique histories. The Historical Collections & Archives (HCA) is located on the 2nd floor of the Greenblatt Library on the Health Sciences campus. Special Collections & Institutional Archives is located on the 3rd floor of the Reese Library on the Summerville campus.
