Recent event:

All in This Together: Preserving Maine's COVID-19 Memories

Link to meeting recording:
https://my.nicheacademy.com/mslstaff/course/18392

The Maine State Library is proud to announce the participating libraries and urge Maine citizens to help libraries document this unique and difficult time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Current project libraries and their projects include:

Heart of Maine Community Stories – A collaboration between Hartland Public Library, Newport Cultural Center, Pittsfield Public Library, Skowhegan Free Public Library, and Thompson Free Library (Dover-Foxcroft) to document life in Central Maine during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Isolating Together – Portland Public Library is inviting those across the greater Portland area to communicate how you are living with the present social distancing measures and “although we may now be physically distant, let us remain socially connected amidst this time of isolating” during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Biddeford COVID-19 Community Archive - The Archive is a joint project of the McArthur Public Library, the Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center and the Biddeford Historical Society that will document life in Biddeford during the COVID-19 pandemic. Community members submit stories, images, oral history interviews, and videos to the archive.

How’s Your week Going? – The Patten Free Public Library in Bath invites those who live, work, or feel at home in Sagadahoc County to share stories about how the COVID-19 epidemic is affecting you and your community.

Ogunquit Memorial Library’s COVID-19 Archive – The Ogunquit Memorial Library invites members of the Ogunquit community to tell their COVID-19 story. The pandemic is affecting local culture and tourism in unprecedented ways; this project lets us document these experiences.

Bangor Covid-19 Community Archives Project - Patrons and community members are invited to submit Pandemic Postcards to be exhibited virtually and in the library in September. Covid-19 stories are also being collected and shared along with exhibits of historic collections relating to earlier pandemics.

Belfast Free Library COVID-19 Community Archives - The Belfast Free Library invites those from Belfast and Waldo County to submit their stories in order to document life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Western Maine Foothills Community Archive – A collaboration between Norway Memorial Library and West Paris Public Library to document life in Western Maine during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fort Fairfield has recently added a SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) Community Impact collection to their existing archive.

Beyond the libraries in this project, many colleges and universities are also documenting the impact of the virus on their campus communities. The University of Maine has a COVID-19 Community Archive in Digital Commons and College of the Atlantic Archives has established the COA COVID-19 Community Archive Project, which is being hosted on the COA Digital Collections.

Signs of the Times: Documenting Covid-19 Signs in Southern Maine is a crowd-sourced digital archive begun in April of 2020 at the University of Southern Maine. The goal of this born digital archive is to document (via photograph) signs created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in Southern Maine, and digitally preserve a particular moment in the region's history.

The Franco-American Collection (FAC) at the University of Southern Maine (USM) is focused on gathering materials from people in Maine’s Franco-American community, and accepting submissions in both French and English. Materials can be digital or physical, and will be posted on the FAC’s Digital Commons website. Check out what has already been submitted here: https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/fac-covid-19-experiences/

Photos, videos, emails, letters, artwork, writings, musical performances and anything you’d like to donate related to your experience of the COVID-19 virus and quarantine are welcome additions to our collection. Here’s a link to our webform to submit online: https://usm.maine.edu/franco-american-collection/franco-american-covid-19-experiences-maine-collection.



This project is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.


Collaborators

My Maine Stories is a storytelling forum managed by Maine Historical Society that provides an online space for sharing recollections about Maine. During this unprecedented time, please consider sharing how you, your family, and community are experiencing the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Be a part of history and help preserve your experiences for future generations. We also seek stories about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, polio epidemic, AIDS crisis, or other instances when your community responded to challenge.

Maine Memory Network Individual Partners: Maine Memory Network is a 20 year-old collaborative of 270 institutions across Maine managed by Maine Historical Society. The platform was recently retooled  for individuals to share  experiences and photographs about Maine, and especially detailing the COVID-19 pandemic.