Never too early to start recording history: Library creating pandemic archive

From WOOD COUNTY DISTRICT PUBLIC LIBRARY

Library staff have begun documenting Wood County’s experience during the pandemic and are creating an archive of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wood County.

“I believe it’s the library’s job to create this resource for the Wood County community and for generations to come,” said local history librarian, Marnie Pratt. Pratt and other staff are in the process of collecting a wide range of material, including news articles, emails, facebook posts, photos, artwork, and other artifacts. “We would welcome items from our Wood County community,” said Pratt.

“If you have items you think would be a good addition to the archive, we’d love to have them,” says Pratt. “We are especially interested in journals or other documents created by community members that reflect their personal reactions to the crisis,” she said.

“For example, if you colored a bear and put it in your window, when it’s time to take down the bear, we would love to have that for the archive” said Pratt. “But don’t take down your bear yet! People are still enjoying the bear hunt.”

If you have digital items, those can also be donated to the archive. For questions about how and when to contribute to the archive, please contact Marnie Pratt at marniepratt@wcdpl.org.  

 “We are all certainly all in this together,” said Pratt “and we want to preserve this experience for generations to come.”