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Central Arkansas Library System asking public to document history during COVID-19 pandemic

You can submit photos, video and even daily journals that you've written to be preserved as history during the pandemic.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — COVID-19 has impacted the daily lives of every person in the state, and CALS wants to make sure every story is told.

The Central Arkansas Library Systems Butler Center launched a website Monday where people can help document history during the pandemic. 

“People have lost their loved ones, lost their jobs, schools have closed. It’s impacted us in ways that, you know, just a few short months ago we couldn’t have imagined,” CALS Butler Center Manager of Research Services Division Brian Robertson said.

Robertson said it’s important Arkansas keeps a historic record of daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We decided that given this momentous event we, CALS, needed to do something to document this so that future generations knew what our experiences were like and what we went through.”

Monday, CALS launched a webpage on their site where Central Arkansas residents can submit their stories and media. 

“Photographs, video, oral histories, just all sorts of things. Anything that people can do that shows how this pandemic has affected them.”

Robertson said we, as a community, have a responsibility to preserve this history.

“You think of history as what you read about in a book; well the fact is we’re living history today.”

CALS held a similar initiative during Arkansas’ historic flooding. They anticipate this site being up for months.

He also encourages people to journal their daily life experiences.

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