We are living in a dramatic time – call it a historical crisis, an unprecedented moment, whatever you will. In the future, students of history, historians, journalists, and scholars will want to write an account of these next days, weeks, and months. What sources will they use to tell the story of this moment, and how can we work to preserve and gather records, both to help us process our own lived experience and to help those in the future to tell our story? The Eastern Illinois University Department of History and Booth Library are joining together to gather materials from our students and community to document this extraordinary and uncertain moment.
To do this, we are asking students, teachers, and community members to gather evidence, essentially to engage in the project of archiving the present. We are especially looking for written accounts, meaning diaries or journals. We welcome submissions of journals or diaries that chronicle daily experiences as well as your response to larger events unfolding in our community, state, nation, and world. We welcome handwritten diaries as well as typewritten ones, and there are no real guidelines other than that entries should all be dated (month, day, year).
We will collect items and materials through Dec. 1, 2020, and submitters are encouraged to document this experience through at least May 1 before submitting.
