West Paris Public Library

Western Maine Foothills Community Archive

Western Maine Foothills Community Archive is an online platform for collecting and sharing stories about life in the Western Maine Foothills Region region. This community-based project is a collaboration between Norway Memorial Library and West Paris Public Library. The current focus is on documenting life during the COVID-19 pandemic and other historic events that have impacted our communities.

Project goals: Connect community members across generations and experiences through the act of sharing and listening to stories. Explore the past, present, and future of life in the Heart of Maine.
Create an online archive to preserve our region’s history for use by students and other community members.

This site is also part of the COVID-19 Community Archives project, a collaborative, statewide initiative to document life in Maine during the COVID-19 pandemic. To see the full list of participating libraries, click here. Maine Contemporary Archives.

We need your help! We invite you to submit your stories, images, videos, or audio files to preserve the history of this time. We welcome items created by you, including journal entries, video diaries, schedules, photographs, artwork, oral history interviews, songs, or whatever documents your pandemic experience. If you have any questions, please contact us. Submissions will be shared online and may be distributed to the public for educational purposes, including formats such as print, public, programming, exhibits, websites, and other online platforms. ALL submissions are shared under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. This means that the donor retains copyright, but that the public may freely copy, modify, and share them for noncommercial purposes under the same terms if they include the source information.

Click here to submit a text-based story or upload an image, oral history interview, video, or audio recording. If you prefer to share your story by phone or email, or need help to participate, please contact us, and we will get in touch! Project goals: Connect community members across generations and experiences through the act of sharing and listening to stories. Explore the past, present, and future of life in the Western Maine Foothills. Create an online archive to preserve our region’s history for use by students and other community members.

I understand that West Paris Public Library and Norway Memorial Library are not obligated to include my content in this project or preserve it in perpetuity. Library personnel reserve the right to reject any exhibit in full or in part. Exhibited items will meet a standard acceptable to the community. Decisions to include or decline submissions will adhere to the institution's policies' guidelines on collections, displays, exhibits, and deaccession.

The Western Maine Foothills Community Archive site is made possible with support from the Maine State Library and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.