Author: Jacob Bransky

Week 5: some thoughts on my Collection Process

Jacob Bransky on

So far, I have collected documents and photos from my local area showing responses to coronavirus. This has been at local businesses and community gathering places. I also have recorded how my own life has changed and some of the activities I have been doing at home. This will hopefully capture some of the local changes that have occurred during this time. I have been focusing on collecting ephemeral things that may not be easy to document post-Coronavirus. I feel that in this part of my work, I have been pretty representative of the local community in the public realm.

My main focus is working with teachers and students in primary and secondary school to document their stories. In terms of the generational diversity, I see this as being an important perspective that is sometimes tough to reach as most sources come from adults. One thing I have hit a snag with is who is engaging and submitting things in the virtual classroom. These students are the ones who normally struggle less in school and have a home situation that is conducive to learning. This is something I need to keep in mind as a potential weakness of the voices I am collecting for the archive.  

Generational Diversity in the Covid-19 Archive

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This term, our group is focused on ensuring that we preserve voices from people across generational lines to get a fuller picture of how this pandemic is affecting families, communities, and individuals across the country. While recent news stories have often highlighted tropes of endangered and isolated seniors and community elders, while often pointing to children or young adults as unwarry, or even dismissive Coronavirus spreaders, this disease is affecting people of all ages and we want to preserve this full range of impacts in the archive. We are looking to utilize several avenues for this collection. Rebecca has begun to explore the impacts on seniors in rural West Virginia, asking them to record some of their experiences to include their voices and experiences of this year. Jacob and McLain are increasingly focused on the impacts of Covid-19 shutdowns on children and young people, with a particular focus on how education is adapting and how this affects students and families across the country. We have begun to gather sources from State departments of education, school districts, and teachers, and we hope to outreach and begin to gather experiences from students themselves in different areas. This might take the shape of written journals, photographs, recorded zoom calls, or even oral histories performed by students on their classmates that will document the experiences of a group underrepresented in news reports and fundamental to our understanding of how families and communities are responding to and enduring this pandemic.

Jacob’s Introduction

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Hi everyone! My name is Jacob Bransky and I am a senior Geology major from Gays Mills, WI. I first became interested in this class as I enjoy looking at local archives from my area. I especially like learning about changes in land use and also learning the stories of people who lived in the same area but at a very different time. In geology classes, I have had opportunities to examine historical archives for the Northfield area and to study changes in landscape since European settlement. This term, I am looking forward to learning about the archiving process and I hope to better understand and appreciate the work that goes into preserving historical documents.

This term I will be at home which has thankfully had few coronavirus cases. My community is older and lower income than the state and national averages which led me to focus on generational and income inequalities as a theme. I want to focus on the way these inequities are affecting people’s lives including difficulties many people face accessing education and food as well as generational differences in reaction to the virus. These are some of the ideas I have coming into the course and I look forward to learning more about the archiving process which will help me to hone my thoughts.