Statement of Values
The Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive was launched in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic and was closed to submissions on June 30, 2023. The site and all contributions will be preserved by Providence Public Library and Rhode Island Historical Society.
The Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive is a public digital archive created and maintained by Providence Public Library (PPL) and the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS) to document the lived experience of all Rhode Islanders during the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that every person in our community has something of value to contribute to this documented history, and that we are empowered by telling our many stories. We are particularly interested in views that may be otherwise lost, obscured, or ignored in news media accounts, press releases, and government advisories. We also seek documentation of Rhode Island's protest and activist movements, which we see as inherently linked to the COVID-19 crisis.
We aspire to the Principles of Community Archives held by our colleagues at PPL and value community-led archival initiatives. Through outreach and collaboration, we are working to address absences and silences in this emerging archive with the understanding that the full range of individual stories are needed to create an accurate, complex historical record. We know that community-led archival work takes a dedication to long-term collaboration. We are committed to being transparent about our approaches to building an archival resource that helps Rhode Island reflect on life during and after COVID-19.
The perspectives and decisions in creating the Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive reflect those of a small, predominately white project team, most of whom work and live in Providence. We believe that all Black lives matter and are committed to dismantling oppressive systems in our archival work and our daily lives. We prioritize outreach efforts that document and preserve the perspectives of marginalized communities of Rhode Islanders during the pandemic. COVID-19 has magnified existing health and economic disparities for these communities in our state and our country at-large, and we understand that we are asking members of these communities to engage with and share potentially traumatic experiences with the public. We encourage you to take any time you need to decide what you would like to share and when, if at all.
Any identifying information submitted in a publicly accessible archive such as this can pose a risk to those in vulnerable situations and/or participating in protests. We are proceeding with caution, learning from best practices, and we ask you, our contributors, to think carefully about what you might share with the project. We respect that individuals and communities in Rhode Island may decide not to submit to this archive, preferring to collect, preserve, and curate on their own terms. We are happy to offer advice to anyone interested in taking up this work.
Our project team began work on the Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive in March 2020. We are actively applying for grants to financially support additional labor needed to meet the challenges of "rapid response" collecting, an approach that operates on a more urgent timeline than traditional archival initiatives. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to contribute to this site, but we recognize that this project comes with inherent digital barriers. Please contact us if you or someone you know has a physical copy (such as a letter or photograph) of something to submit and would like assistance in making it available online. We welcome all suggestions, feedback or questions at rica@rihs.org.