Be a part of history and submit your writing, photographs, drawings, videos and sounds from lockdown to Auckland Council Libraries ‘COVID-19 - A Snapshot in Time Archive’.
Libraries are calling for Aucklanders to submit material created during Alert Levels 4 through to 1 for a contemporary archive that captures voices from communities across Tāmaki Makaurau during this unique time in our history.
The archive collection will be housed in the Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection for researchers to use in the future.
This archive will be a valuable record of our time in lockdown that captures:
- real voices and sounds from our communities
- an accurate and true recording of our lives during this crisis - 'a snapshot in time'
- a spread of material from communities across the region
- a wide variety of voices, including different age groups.
What material to submit for the archive
For this archive, Libraries are interested in a variety of content from your lockdown experience, including your writing, photographs, videos and drawings, screen shots of social media posts and sounds. A combination of these items is also welcome.
They are looking for a diversity of voice and experience; from how you marked occasions such as Easter, Passover, Ramadan and Anzac Day during lockdown, to how day-to-day living changed - funerals, separation from families, having COVID-19 tests, working from home, homeschooling, the shopping experience, acts of kindness and how you accessed news.
If you don’t already have this content, you can create it now by posing questions on your lockdown experience to yourself, your whānau or a small group. You could also include your impressions and experiences during Alert Level 2, and life now, in Alert Level 1. For example, looking at life in Aotearoa New Zealand compared to current situations in other countries and fellow New Zealanders returning home.
How to submit items
Contact Sharon Smith at Auckland Council Libraries if you would like to take part in the archive and an arrangement can be made for sending or delivering content. You can deposit materials into this archive now or at any time when you are ready to donate content you’ve created.
Auckland Council Libraries Heritage Collections hold items that are centuries old, including diaries and images from over 100 years ago, that help us to better understand the lived experiences of those times. The ‘COVID-19 - A Snapshot in Time Archive’ is the people of Auckland’s chance to contribute to telling the story of this time for future generations.
