By Gloria Stravelli
RED BANK – In the not-too-distant future, someone curious about what local life was like during the COVID-19 pandemic will be able to visit the Local History Room at the Red Bank Public Library and comb through an archive of personal recollections, stories, posts, videos, recordings, photos, music and more.
“This is a once-in a-lifetime event,” said Karen Cronin, library assistant at the borough library. “We have a Local History Room upstairs in the library. We have a lot of things archived from the history of Red Bank. This will be the permanent home of the Red Bank Public Library COVID Archive Project.
“We are asking people to submit photos, drawings, stories, poetry,” said Cronin, who is one of four library staffers working on the project and vetting items for inclusion. “We already had one patron who sent some items in last week.”
Cronin said the reference librarian has also been collecting items like social media posts the library made during the pandemic and articles written about how residents and businesses in Red Bank fared during the past year, with the goal of amassing enough items to make a display.
“We are limiting it to Red Bank, to things going on within Red Bank or the people within Red Bank. We’re the local library, we want to keep it local,” Cronin explained.
Plans for the Red Bank Public Library COVID Archive Project are posted on the library website at redbanklibrary.org.
“We are experiencing a moment in history that will be remembered and studied long into the future. The Red Bank Public Library has created the COVID Archive Project and we want you to be a part of it,” the post reads.
“If you live, work, or go to school in Red Bank we want to collect your thoughts and memories of what you have been experiencing during this difficult time. All ages are encouraged to participate.”
Submissions sought include short stories of up to 1,500 words, poetry, drawings, paintings, photos, music or songs and short video or audio recordings of less than five minutes that will become part of the display at the library at 84 W. Front St. when it reopens to the public.
Guidelines ask that those who contribute to the collection submit only articles they own or have created, as they will not be returned.
The project team is open to accepting a wide variety of artifacts.
“We’ve actually talked about accepting, for example, special menus. During the pandemic restaurant menus have been reduced,” Cronin said. “Really anything. We would take anything.
“There’s not a corner of our lives it hasn’t touched, regardless of age.
“For younger kids, drawings they might have done to express what they’ve been experiencing. Young children have been restricted; they can’t just run down the street to their friend’s house to play.
Cronin expects there will be a lot of photo submissions: of closed business signs, of health care workers or even of masks and the PPE that became ubiquitous this year.
She thinks a good addition would be stories from hospital workers. “That would be a great thing to hear,” she said.
“Any age can send something in. We had some topics we have written out in a blurb asking students how learning has been impacted by virtual learning. It would be interesting to hear how students are feeling about that as well.”
In addition to Cronin, library staff involved in the archive project include Natalya Andrex, library assistant, Barbara Pickell, adult services librarian, and Linda Hewitt, circulation supervisor/outreach and program coordinator. They will go through all of the submitted items together.
Cronin said she got the idea for the COVID Archive Project from a similar project initiated by another library.
While searching the web to learn what other libraries were doing to document the local impacts of the pandemic, she found the Newark Public Library had posted a request for people to contribute remembrances related to COVID-19, written and visual, to an archive that would be made available to the public and retained for historical research.
“I had been perusing other libraries to see what was going on and saw that and it rang a bell with me right away,” she said. “I had been thinking, what can we do regarding the pandemic? We’re a library and we’re here for the public. I brought it up to our library managers and they were very interested in doing it.
“I hope it catches on. It would be a great thing for all towns to do, to archive what the public has been going through.”
Information about the archive project will be posted on the sign in front of the library building and on the library’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
Staff at the library are also thinking about what they will contribute to the project.
“We’ve learned so much personally over the past year and have had to learn a lot of tech so we could do our jobs from home,” Cronin said.
“I may write a short article on how it has changed me personally and professionally. I learned so many things, how to use Zoom, how to post.
“We were just talking about that at a meeting, how we’ve learned so much more over the past year.”
The library website offers prompts to help focus recollections about the COVID impacts, including:
- What has surprised you most during the pandemic?
- What has happened during the pandemic that has been positive?
- What has been most difficult?
- Are you or a family member an essential worker? How has this affected your family?
- What are your fears now and/or for the future?
- Has your work/business been impacted by COVID-19?
- If you are a student, has your learning been impacted?
- Topics for consideration: social distancing, grocery shopping, quarantine, schooling, health care, etc.
Submissions should include first and last name, address, age and occupation/business and can be emailed to redbanklibrary@gmail.com with the subject line: COVID Archive Project. Submissions can also be mailed to RBPL, 84 W. Front St., Red Bank NJ 07701.
Check the library website for more information.
The Red Bank Public Library is currently open for curbside pickup Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 5 p.m; Wednesday from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.; and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. The library is closed Sunday.
This article originally appeared in the March 11, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
