Pandemic Stories

The Problem:
When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, it became clear that our society was living through an historic moment, unprecedented in most people’s lifetimes. Future researchers will be interested in learning about this crisis, how we managed it, and our day-to-lives. Archival material will be a crucial resource for understanding today’s events. McMaster’s Health Sciences Archives (HSA) documents the life, history and people of FHS and HHS. Given the historical significance of the COVID-19 crisis, it is particularly important that the HSA ensures an historical record of FHS and HHS’s experiences survives for future generations.

The Gap:
Some documents, such as FHS news stories, will likely eventually make their way to the archives and serve as a record for FHS’s experiences and activities at this time. However, these records are not enough to provide comprehensive coverage. To provide future researchers with comprehensive resources that look at this crisis from varying perspectives, these official records need to be supplemented by the every day stories of staff, students, faculty, researchers and front-line workers.

The Innovation/Initiative:
The Health Sciences Archives launched the Pandemic Stories Project in May 2020 in an effort to connect with members of the FHS and HHS communities who have records to share documenting their day-to-day experiences throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The archives has been collecting photographs, journals, reflections and other material in an effort to build an historical record of our community’s experiences. This is a multi-year project that will continue throughout the pandemic and beyond.

Why Other Should Try This:
Contributing material helps build our shared historical record. Your material will provide future researchers with the raw data they will require to understand our lives at this time. Material in the archives can be accessed by a variety of different researchers (journalists, curators, filmmakers, academics, etc.) and they ways it might be used is limitless. If there is sensitive information in the submission, the archives can restrict the material for a period of time while still ensuring it survives beyond our lifetimes for future researchers.