The Pandemic Journaling Project offers insight into people's experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online journal received almost 27,000 entries from 2,000 people in 55 countries from May 2020 to May 2022, and its data was published onto Syracuse University's Qualitative Data Repository on Thursday.

The once-in-a-lifetime experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic kickstarted the project.

“I don’t know of any other study of this kind," said Sebastian Karcher, associate director of SU's Qualitative Data Repository.

"Every time I hear or read or see a contribution, I feel that person has given us a gift," said Sarah Willen, co-founder of The Pandemic Journaling Project. "The gift of their perspective, the gift of their insight."

The motto: Usually, history is written only by the powerful. Now, it’s ours to write.

“Typically, history is written by the resources available, using the records that are available, and often those records only include a narrow subset of voices," Willen said.

“What they wanted to capture was these everyday experiences to make sure what we felt, that our loneliness, our joy, our crazy times, didn’t get lost for history," Karcher said.

From the thrill of seeing a loved one to the heartbreak of losing someone you loved, all of the experiences are published on Syracuse University’s Qualitative Data Repository.

“For 25 years after we put the material at QDR, the journals that people have contributed are protected research data," Willen said.

"In 2049, it will then be publicly accessible to everyone," Karcher said.

It will keep the history of the pandemic alive for generations to come.

“It’s really a broad spectrum view of the world, and not just this 'here are the facts' about the pandemic account," said Karcher.

“What we have here are first-person perspectives recorded in real time. There’s nothing more valuable than that in understanding a particular historical moment," Willen said.

To learn more about The Pandemic Journaling Project, go to its website at https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu. There are featured entries available to read.