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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ACQUIRES AUDIO DIARIES FROM HEALTHCARE WORKERS DURING COVID-19 Collection fromThe Nocturnists Documents Challenges Healthcare Workers Faced as Pandemic Evolved The Library of Congress has acquired audio diaries featuring more than 200 frontline healthcare workers in the fight against COVID-19, a collection that provides first-hand testimonies from hospitals and communities across the country as the public health crisis unfolded. The audio library was donated by The Noctur- nists, a San Francisco-based independent medical storytelling community and podcast. The majority of the recordings were originally collected for the “Stories from a Pandemic” series in the spring of 2020, of

Healthcare workers struggled with their own fears of the COVID-19 pandemic while trying to save lives. (Art by Lindsay Mound)

which only a small fraction was published on the podcast and accompanying online story map. The gift also includes the pandemic-related material fromThe Nocturnists’ “Black Voices in Healthcare” series, which was recently selected as a pod- cast honoree in the 2021 Webby Awards. Additionally, the group plans to donate recordings collected for the follow-up series, “Stories from a Pandemic: Part 2”, launching today on The Nocturnists podcast. The “Stories from a Pandemic” archive, a unique on-going collection of well over 700 audio clips to date, helps describe the “inner landscapes” of doctors, nurses, and other health care practitioners — some of whom worked the overnight shift — as they faced what the CDC has called the country’s worst public health crisis in a century. In fact, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. last year, and more Americans have died after contracting the virus than in both World Wars and the Vietnam War combined. As the nation begins to crawl back to normalcy amid a massive vaccination effort, the collection of audio diaries serves as a reminder of the impact COVID-19 has had on the healthcare system, the economy, education, world commerce and daily life in America. But the collection also offers testimonies about what normalcy may look like at home and in the workplace, going from fear and anxiety to hope and optimism. “The Nocturnists’ collection is full of intimate, real-time stories from medical practitioners at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, confronting the human toll on their patients, themselves and their communities. You hear the sounds of the workplace, the exhaustion in their voices, and the big and small ways they try to cope and contribute; it’s really a re- markable gift,” said Elizabeth Peterson, director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The American Folklife Center, which will house and preserve this digital archive, has been collecting oral histories from different groups and communities since 1976. The collections include interviews with civil rights leaders, as well as first-hand accounts from 9/11 first responders, survivors from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and war veterans since World War I. “The Nocturnists is thrilled to be partnering with the U.S. Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institu- tion, for our ‘Stories from a Pandemic’ audio documentary storytelling project. We couldn’t imagine a better home for our audio library, which captures the raw emotions of numerous healthcare workers in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and will serve as a historical document for future generations,” said Emily Silverman, a practicing internist and founder of The Nocturnists. Many contributors withheld their full names and other identifiers to provide a candid assessment of their working condi- tions, and the poignant accounts describe their personal risks, struggles and all-consuming frustrations while tending to the sick and dying. ...continued on page 8

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