When coronavirus is behind us, it won’t be hard to go back and find news reports or government documents related to the pandemic, but it might be harder to find accounts of how people were feeling, or how their lives changed. The Mesa Public Library wants to archive some of those personal stories.
The library is asking Mesa residents to submit COVID-19 documents, whether it’s a letter you wrote to a loved one you couldn’t visit in-person, a picture of sidewalk chalk art your kid drew to cheer up the neighborhood, or a voice recording describing your experiences working from home. Librarian Cherise Mead said the Community Voices project is all about personal and emotional details.
“Those are the things that can really enrich future students’ or scholars’ or just curious people’s understanding of these huge global events," Mead said.
The library will post weekly prompts on its social media accounts. Mesa residents can make submissions online, by mail, or call to leave a voice recording.
Mead said some of the first submissions to the archive were photos of a project one resident had time to complete at home after being laid off and photos of face masks a mother embroidered for her children.
