Kelvin Smith Library

Case Western Reserve University Kelvin Smith Library is seeking to document the personal experiences of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and other campus members during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. We invite you, the campus community, to record your stories and contribute them to the University Archives for preservation and a place in the university’s historical record.

We are interested in your stories about the shift to remote instruction and learning, studying and working from home, working at 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 physical distancing and self-quarantining.

• Some non-academic staff members are essential and are still working on campus daily. Many staff members are working remotely for the first time.
• Faculty and students had to quickly convert from an on-campus learning environment to an online-only environment.
• Many of our international students cannot travel home and some are still living in dormitories.

The entire situation has been a first for this university – a university that is over 192 years old. The University Archives regularly receives records from university offices, departments, and organizations, which reflect their activities and viewpoints. In addition to what we are regularly receiving, the University Archives would like to capture the personal viewpoints of the people who make up the campus community.

How you record your thoughts and experiences is up to you. You can write in a journal, create poetry, record voice memos, save your social media posts, take photos and/or videos of life as you see it, create multimedia works of digital storytelling.