2020 UMDCC+ MDL Annual Meeting

When the University of Minnesota Duluth Archives & Special Collections launched the Northeastern Minnesota COVID-19 Community Archive Project, we were embarking on a new journey. We had never done a large community archive project, or a major digital collecting initiative. Furthermore, this project had come together in barely two weeks, as we found our small staff of two suddenly transitioning to working from home. Four months later, we have received over 300 items from about 100 contributors, including photographs, artwork, written reflections, videos, records of church services, social media posts, student work, and more. We have also partnered with UMD’s College of Liberal Arts (CLA) on a $175,745 NEH CARES grant, which employs humanities professionals who have lost income due to COVID-19 to produce 100 oral history interviews, along with creative works based on the interviews. The grant project will be added to the Community Archive. This presentation will explore the challenges, false starts, partnerships, and creative approaches that went into making the Northeastern Minnesota COVID-19 Community Archive project a success.

The presentation will also include segments by: Jennifer Moore, a UMD Journalism and Communications professor whose students contributed to the archive; Devaleena Das and David Beard, the CLA faculty who applied for the NEH CARES grant; and Adeline Wright and Allen Killian-Moore, community members who contributed to the archive.