A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19 as a Community of Practice

Abstract

With the onset of COVID-19 in the Spring of 2020, my graduate school experience changed abruptly. That disruption, however, led to my involvement in the creation and implementation of the digital archive A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19 (JOTPY). In this article, I describe the creation of both the archive and the community of practice that developed, and how that community of practice upended traditional models found within higher education. I also describe the processes that created a space within the archive for educators to use, both as a repository and teaching tool. These processes could then be replicated to serve other needs, such as creating a space for museums, creating exhibits or creating a page within JOTPY to highlight a group. By framing the work of A Journal of the Plague Year as a community of practice, I show how the community worked toward shared goals while learning from each other along the way to create a rapid-response, online digital collection during a worldwide pandemic.