UTA Libraries Pandemic Archive Thrives, Welcome New Submissions from Arlington Community

It began simply enough—by creating space for members of the University of Texas at Arlington community to document their lives while experiencing a once-in-a-generation global pandemic.

Eighteen months later, the UTA Libraries Pandemic Archive has collected nearly 100 submissions from 45 individual donors, as well as recorded volunteer oral histories and archived digital materials from social media platforms like TikTok.

University and Labor Archivist Michael Barera says the genesis of the archive came from an organic desire to preserve the lived experiences of the UTA community.

“As we were moving home for remote work back in March of 2020, we were all thinking of creative ways to document [the pandemic experience] as archivists as well as engage with our community,” Barera said. “I think the Pandemic Archive was just a natural fit—it's something we felt that we really needed to do, and something we were able to do even working remotely, which was great.”

Barera and fellow archivist Priscilla Escobedo have led the project for UTA Libraries Special Collections since May 2020, with Digital Archivist Kathryn Slover joining in September of that year.

For Escobedo, this project has become a personal one.

“I actually submitted some obsequies for my grandmother's funeral—she passed due to COVID back in June,” Escobedo said. “I wanted to help open the gates for future donors, or maybe in the future when someone does look at this collection, they could say, ‘hey, you know somebody gave some obsequies, okay—this is something that I want to donate to the collection as well because I too lost somebody due to COVID.’”

Slover assists with the digital components of the archive, frequently archiving relevant TikToks and other social media artifacts. She says troubleshooting this process has been a challenge, but a necessary one to overcome.

“These social media platforms are a lot more difficult to capture with the technology that Archive-It provides,” Slover said. “But an item in the archive I love is ‘Quarantine Olympics.’ I love it because it just shows people trying to find joy in a time where they don’t have much.

"It also shows the social media component of that, you know. People are sharing what they're doing and still trying to stay in touch with their communities in these different ways, since we couldn't be with each other physically.”

The trio is hopeful that members of the public will continue to submit their materials to the collection, which will be open for the foreseeable future.

“We want to know what people are going through on a day-to-day basis,” Escobedo said. “That's the kind of information historians are going to find relevant in the future: what was it like for your everyday person just trying to get through a pandemic situation that we haven't seen in 100 years so?”

Barera echoes Escobedo, emphasizing the importance preserving of every lived experience—in whatever format is appropriate.

“From the beginning we didn't want to box in users in terms of what they could submit—either in form or content,” Barera, said. “As long as it's related to their experience and our collective experience of the pandemic, it is absolutely relevant. I think all perspectives are welcome and valid, and I want to encourage anybody who's interested to participate.”

Mavericks and members of the surrounding communities are encouraged to share their pandemic experiences for the archive using the form on the Special Collections page.