A historical archive project continues at Illinois College’s Khalaf Al-Habtoor Archives as it works to document the COVID-19 pandemic and experiences in Jacksonville.
Archive Curator and Illinois College History Professor Samantha Sauer says that the Archive Your Story project, which started last March, is in collaboration with several other schools across the country: “This is an active, ongoing collecting project, and many other campuses, museums, archives, community museums, libraries, and historical organizations are doing similar projects to uniquely document their community’s experience. We are all learning from each other to best document and preserve this collective historical moment.”
Sauer says IC students have been key to making the project be successful: “One of the key parts that makes this project possible are Illinois College students. Illinois College students have active leadership roles in helping us collect, preserve, and share history in the Khalaf Al-Habtoor Archives at Illinois College, and we’re so lucky to have them on board leading this project.”
Sauer says one of the key ways that the students have been so vital to the program’s success has been through doing interviews with members of the greater college community: “They are continuing to make history during this moment. Illinois College students are serving as leaders in the process to collect materials as part of ‘Archive Your Story,’ which includes an active digital, oral history program where Illinois College students are collecting, transcribing, and sharing oral history conversations. I am incredibly proud of their excellent work and energies to do good history and help share our community’s stories.”
Anyone interested in learning more can email archiveyourstory@ic.edu.