AustLit
We track library responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most libraries initiated some form of collection protocol, to gather physical and digital artefacts of the pandemic. What we explore here, however, are the community-building and outreach projects, and the ones that situate the pandemic within the broader history of the library, the state or territory, or the country.
'We are currently aware of entire public library systems being closed in the following countries and territories: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.'
'Library Closures Around the World', International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 13 October 2020.
The National Library of Australia began identifying and collecting material about COVID-19 in February 2020, and continued to archive online material—which is so often ephemeral in these cases—throughout the pandemic, including news websites, travel advisories from airlines, critical government information, and highly pandemic-specific material such as the website I Lost My Gig, which captured quick-response data about the impact of the pandemic on performers, production teams, crews, and venues.
The library also put out the call for collection of physical ephemera, once the conditions of the pandemic make it safe to do so.
Explore more information about the National Library's pandemic response.
Additional content: in March 2020, the library published 'Masks, Soap and Courage', a look back at the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919, including interviews with survivors.
Like many other state libraries, Libraries Tasmania was interested in collecting state-specific experiences of the pandemic: the COVID-19 Stories project was a collaboration between Tasmanian Archives (part of Libraries Tasmania) and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG).
Submissions included photographs, writing, and 'objects with stories'.
'Each submission is like a piece of a puzzle,' Libraries Tasmania writes on the project page: 'the more stories, images and items we receive the more complete our picture of the pandemic becomes.'
Library & Archives NT published a richly illustrated account of the Spanish flu pandemic in the Northern Territory, supported with links out to archival material.
'As with the ‘Spanish Flu’ and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, authorities have harnessed the Territory’s isolation and low population to our advantage,' they write, over an illustration of a contemporary road blockade.
Run originally across the first lockdowns in 2020 and reinstated during New South Wales's second series of lockdowns in 2021, The Diary Files are short vignettes from the every day lives of people, especially those living in NSW. They could be as short as 20 words.
Identified with the author's name, age, and location, as well as the date it was uploaded, the entries cover anxiety about reduced freedoms, children's stories, concerns for children born during lockdown, the pressures of working and learning at home, and the different ways of being we learnt in isolation.
In 2020, the State Library of South Australia began to collect written documents, videos, photographs, audio recordings, and digital illustrations under the title 'Remember My Story'. The project aimed to preserve for posterity the answers to some of the core questions of 'how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted our state and our communities. How did we deal with the crisis and how did it change us as a society? What was daily life like as we lived the experience?'
South Australia closed its borders and instituted lockdowns from March 2020 and, like other states, dealt with snap lockdowns to deal with localised outbreaks.
In addition to its collecting strategies around ephemera and the pivoting of planned exhibitions (such as Spoken, the exhibition on Queensland languages) to an online format, the State Library of Queensland partnered with the Queensland College of Art (QCA) to produce The Way We Live Now, a portraiture project inspired by the photographic record of the Great Depression in rural America.
Drawing on the talents of QCA alumni, many of whom were prevented from keeping their usual international work engagements as a result of the closed borders), the project covered the breadth of Queensland, and was showcased at both the library and the QCA.
Read more about The Way We Live Now.
Explore some of the library's photographic collections related to COVID-19.
Victorians, especially those in high-population areas such as Melbourne, endured some of the longest lockdowns of the pandemic, and certainly the longest in Australia, including a second, almost four-month lockdown in late 2021.
Memory Bank: The Collective Isolation Project is a reaction to this shared experience. Over a period of many weeks, the library used prompts such as 'Our Legacy' ('what do you want people in 100 years from now to know about this time?') and 'Iso Hair' ('share photos of your best, your worst and your craziest lockdown hairstyles and haircuts.') to build a collective archive of the state's pandemic experience. The aim was, as the library states, 'to archive what everyday life in Victoria is actually like now, during this time of collective isolation.'
Funded by the State Library of Western Australia and produced by the Centre for Stories in Northbridge, Western Australia, this collection of interviews records the experiences of Western Australians during the early days of the pandemic.
Despite its relative isolation, Western Australia went into strict lockdown between March and May 2020, with continuing restrictions for months afterwards. The closure of the library was the first time it had closed it doors to the community in its 131-year history (Allen).
Allen, Margaret. 'Unprecedented Times: The State Library of Western Australia's COVID-19 Experience.' Alexandria 30.2-3 (2020): 224-235.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0955749020985341
Note: as well as this and McDonald's article on the State Library of Queensland experience (below), this issue of Alexandria covers the effect of COVID-19 libraries across the globe, including the national libraries of countries such as Lithuania and Peru.
McDonald, Vicki. 'COVID-19: The State Library of Queensland Experience.' Alexandria 30.2-3 (2020): 217-223.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0955749020986372
Note: as well as this and Allens's article on the State Library of Western Australia experience (above), this issue of Alexandria covers the effect of COVID-19 libraries across the globe, including the national libraries of countries such as Lithuania and Peru.
Responses to COVID-19 in Australia's National, State and Territory Libraries. National and State Libraries Australasia, 2020.
https://www.nsla.org.au/resources/responses-covid-19-australias-national-state-and-territory-libraries
Wakeling, Simon, Jane Garner, Philip Hider, Hamid Jamali, Jessie Lymn, Yazdan Mansourian, and Holly Randell-Moon. '"The Challenge Now Is for Us to Remain Relevant: Australian Public Libraries and the COVID-19 Crisis.' IFLA Journal 48.1 (2021): 138-154.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03400352211054115