Still Tide Together: Documenting Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In my role as Special Collections and Digital Initiatives Librarian at The University of Alabama Libraries,
• Goal was to record impressions of the COVID-19 pandemic from the university community and residents of Alabama.
• Launched in June 2020.
• Designed a questionnaire in Qualtrics that allowed for text-based responses to standardized questions and the submission of born-digital materials.
• Used Qualtrics' data validation to have submitters make the metadata that could be exported, parsed, and standardized to library-specific authorities (e.g., Library of Congress subject headings).
• Received 50 submissions, including 75 digital files.
• Represented the first intake of born-digital submissions that would become part of the library’s digital collection.