Each Mainer has there own personal story of living through the 2020 COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and now it's your turn to tell it.

Libraries across the State of Maine are collecting stories from Maine people in the communities to document and archive the happenings of Maine citizens during this pandemic.  It will be an online resource that has been made possible by the Federal CARES Act.

The project is all about the impact of COVID-19 on the communities of Maine and will be made possible by a new website from the Maine State Library that other libraries across the state will be able to access and add stories from their surrounding communities.

You will be sharing how the pandemic has affected you and you will be allowed to share your story in a variety of media that can be a written account via prose, poems, photos, artwork and audio files.

The libraries currently participating in the project include the following, as provided by Maine.gov:

 

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

Future sites in development include the Lewiston Public Library, West Paris Public Library and the University of Maine at Augusta.

To stay up to date and find out more information about the project, visit the Maine State Librarys Hub site and on Facebook at Maine during Covid-19: Our Communities and Archives.

 

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