Behind the Mask: Real Stories from NIH Staff About Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Collecting Your COVID Stories

Since January of 2020, The NIH has been on the forefront of researching, combating, and providing information about COVID-19 that emerged in late 2019. For all of us at NIH, the virus has impacted our lives in several ways including how many of us perform our jobs. The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum is launching a campus-wide initiative to encourage NIH government employees, contractors, trainees, and volunteers to submit documentation about their professional and personal experiences during the COVID-19 outbreakpandemic.

While official records will be preserved according to federal regulations, there are no such provisions in place to ensure that personal reactions will be captured that give a more collective account about NIH and its response to the virus. Your contribution will be the primary source material future historians will use to understand how NIH fared and adapted at this critical time. Please take the time to tell your story!

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COVID-19 has affected each of us at the NIH in many ways — whether it has meant being part of the race to discover therapeutics and vaccines, caring for patients in the Clinical Center, cleaning or maintaining facilities, to re-configuring work protocols, adjusting to our changed professional and personal routines, or grappling with our emotions. Here  Here are some suggestions of topics you can discussaddress:

• Working on campus during the pandemic
• Teleworking or being furloughed during the pandemic
• How COVIDThe effect that COVID-19 has affected had on your personal interactions with co-workers
• Opportunities that have emerged due to COVID-19
• Particular aspects of your work that you miss
• How your training and career have been affected
• How you feel the NIH has responded overall to the crisis

Your perspective on how COVID-19 is unique and can be communicated in whatever mediums and formats you feel fitting to express your experience. Some ideas include but are not limited to:

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Share your reflections and submit any digital files that document your experience with COVID-19 with this form. Answer as many or as few questions as you would like. Be sure to read the permission agreements at the end of the form. Your consent allows us to use your materials online, in exhibits, and in publications as well as add them to our the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum's collection.

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1. Fill out and print out our Deed of Gift form (pdf, 12kb). This gives us the permission to use your materials online, in exhibits, and in publications as well as add them to our the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum's collection.
2. If you have physical items or papers that capture your experience with contending with COVID-19, either mail or deliver them in-person materials to the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum once we re-open at:

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Terms and Conditions Concerning the Process

Please try to avoid including do not include personal health information in your submissions for the privacy rights of those involved. 

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The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum

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has the right to reject any submission or component of a submission that it considers duplicative, inappropriate, or outside the scope of the project.

There is no firm deadline to submit materials as the pandemic continues. We estimate that the submission element of this project will last through 2020.

Submissions will not be available immediately for public viewing. After the submissions are processed, they will be accessible on the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum website or onsite.The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum has the right to reject any submission or component of a submission that it considers duplicative, inappropriate, or outside the scope of the   we do hope to immediately begin curating submissions and feature some of them on our website and by early 2021.  We will acknowledge receipt of your submission, and we will additionally inform you if your submission is featured on the website element of this collection project.

If you have concerns about the way your submission is represented online, contact the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum at history@nih.gov to discuss potential solutions.

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