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The UIC University Library’s Special Collections and University Archives, UIC Humanities In Medicine student group (HuMed) and the UIC College of Medicine need your stories, photos and artwork!
By now, you’ve probably heard various media outlets comparing our current situation of living with COVID-19 to that of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Reporters, journalists, and even bloggers have discussed the various ways people coped, thought, and lived during the 1918 flu epidemic. But how do they know what they used, thought, and did during this time?
Without documentation, we may never have known that the 1918 flu epidemic happened, let alone how people responded to it.
To increase the awareness of those affected by COVID-19, University Archives is asking you, the current students, faculty, and staff at the University of Illinois at Chicago, to share your stories and experiences. We want to hear how your life as a student, faculty member, or staff member has been impacted by COVID-19.
We will preserve your submissions in Special Collections & University Archives at UIC. Selected submission materials may later be used in projects like, but not limited to: class discussions, digital exhibits or future oral histories.
We are interested in gathering stories from the UIC community about how this pandemic has affected your campus and personal experience — the shift to remote instruction and learning; studying and working from home; working at on-campus and off-campus jobs; the impact of closing residence halls and other campus services; the ways you and your friends and family are staying in touch during this period of social distancing and self-quarantine; and so on.
Some ways to share your story:
Write a journal entry, poem, blog post, or even an essay detailing how you have dealt with your current situation,
record a voice memo,
save your social media posts (as a screenshot!)
take photos and/or videos of life as you see it,
create a piece of artwork, whether drawing, painting, etc.
create a multimedia work of digital storytelling
Please adhere to city, county, and state stay-at-home orders while self-documenting.
Please fill out our form and provide as much detail about you and your submission as you can in the areas provided. Your submission must include an email address in case we need to contact you, but the email will not become part of the public collection. You may also choose to anonymize your submission.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Submissions that are accepted will be made publicly available to researchers. Filling out this form signifies that you understand that your materials will be made publicly available to researchers and that your submissions will become property of Special Collections & University Archives at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
We can accept most any type of format, such as photos (jpg, png), videos (mp4, mov), audio (mp3), and text (txt, pdf, docx, doc). If you are unsure about something in particular, don't want to use the Google form, or if you have physical items you would like to donate, please email lib-spec@uic.libanswers.com, and we can help!
There is no deadline for submissions. University Archives is building this collection to be featured permanently within their UIC history collection. This collection will become available to the general public.
Please do not send personal health information, whether yours or others, in your submission. University Archives is not obligated to include and preserve all submissions and reserves the right to not collect submissions that it deems out of scope, inappropriate, or duplicative.
If you or someone you know is having a difficult time, please seek out resources that are available to you online at https://today.uic.edu/support-for-the-uic-community.
Thank you to Katie Howell of J. Murrey Atkins Library, University of North Carolina Charlotte for allowing us to use text and ideas from the UNCC “Contribute Your Stories of the COVID-19 Outbreak” website.