Ottawa Archives seek donations to document pandemic

OTTAWA – The City of Ottawa Archives, in collaboration with uOttawa and Carleton University, is looking to gather records of how residents have, are and will be experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic.

For safety reasons, the Ottawa Archives will be accepting only digital records and scanned copies of physical records. Examples of accepted formats include Word, PDF, JPEG, TIFF, MP4, .wav files.

They are interested in items such as:

• Correspondence
• Business records
• Diaries, journals, scrapbooks
• Artwork, posters, maps, plans
• Minutes of meetings, reports, membership lists
• Unpublished works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, speeches
• Photographs, sound recordings, films, videos

Physical materials records will not be accepted at this time. These donations will be accepted later once it is safe to accept donations in person. 

“Contact us and an archivist will make arrangements to review your materials once physical distancing measures are relaxed,” archives staff released in a statement. “And please keep collecting! We will eventually be seeking to capture other aspects of the pandemic, such as the return to work and what new measures have been introduced to workplaces and homes.”

For more information and details on this collection, visit the Archives page on ottawa.ca.

For more information on city programs and services, visit ottawa.ca or call 311 (TTY: 613-580-2401).