University of the Pacific’s library staff is creating an innovative, digital time capsule to preserve memories of 2020’s myriad challenges—from a pandemic to social justice issues to remote learning.

Tiger Tales is an effort through Scholarly Commons, the digital repository of the William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center.

Niraj Chaudhary, associate university librarian, explains Tiger Tales is an “initiative to capture living experiences of Pacific’s community during this historic time.”

Tiger Tales was launched during the spring 2020 semester in response to unforeseen and significant challenges faced by the university community.

Pacific students, faculty, staff and alumni can submit their experiences to Tiger Tales in many formats, including videos, images and written works. The library staff—recognizing that it might be daunting to decide what to share with “the future”—has created a number of prompts, which are accessible on the Tiger Tales website.

Keely Canniff ’19, digital projects manager and an early contributor to Tiger Tales, was “feeling disconnected with a sudden shift to working from home and being isolated from others.”

That inspired Canniff to create a video about neighborhood ducks in the style of a casual conversation someone might enjoy with a co-worker. The goal: create positives in a time of negatives.

Canniff encourages Pacific community members to use Tiger Tales as an opportunity to check in with themselves.

“Even if it’s just one or five minutes, it is important to reflect on your well-being and feelings,” Canniff said. “Everyone’s feelings are valid and sharing them in a time capsule is important to community and individual strength.”

Chaudhary said the Tiger Tales effort can lead to community growth.

“We are documenting our collective history and building community connections,” Chaudhary said. “Five or ten years down the road, there are endless possibilities. We can look back on and learn from experiences.”

Library staff also hopes the time capsule can serve as a basis for class projects. The value that Tiger Tales has to the university will be determined by the response it receives.

“Be honest with yourself and your audience,” Canniff said.

Tiger Tales will continue to be accessible after the school year as the library staff compiles and archives the collected resources.