April 21, 2021
Dear Peninsula Community,
Over a year ago, the Palos Verdes Library District closed its doors due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In March 2020, we asked for photos to help document this extraordinary event. Thanks to your contributions, we’ve created the Coronavirus Pandemic 2020 Collection, which documents our year of “pandemic living”. It is available today and to future generations to see just how the pandemic affected our lives. Even though the vaccine is rolling out, you can still contribute to the collection using this YSPS Online Form. We welcome your continued contributions.
This month we launch a new themed community digitization project as part of our Your Story is the Peninsula’s Story initiative. This time in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Palos Verdes Art Center. Since it started in 1931 as the Palos Verdes Community Arts Association, PVAC has been a cultural touchstone to generations of Peninsula residents.
To celebrate, we are asking for your PVAC-related photos. Perhaps you have photos from an Art At Your Fingertips program, or from PVAC classes, workshops and summer camps. Maybe you have photos from your parents’ association with The Circle, The Associates, The Docent Council or one of the seven artist groups who regularly exhibited in the galleries. Do you have photographs of the annual Art For Fun(d)s Sake community celebration or travel to Cuba or another location with PVAC? Every story matters and photos help tell it.
To contribute to this collection, please use this dedicated PVAC@90/YSPS. You can also access this form on the Local History Center webpage https://www.pvld.org/localhistory/projects and at the Art Center’s page, https://pvartcenter.org/pvac-90/. (If you do not have a Gmail account, required for security reasons, contact me for assistance.) Please share these links with anyone you think might be interested.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me (msugimoto@pvld.org) or Gail Phinney (gphinney@pvart.org) with PVAC.
Thank you for your stories!
Monique Sugimoto
March 23, 2020
Dear Peninsula Community and Beyond:
As the archivist and local history librarian with the Palos Verdes Library District, I hope this letter finds you safe and well.
History is often associated with the past - events of someone or something not connected with us. There is nothing like a global health crisis, however, to realize we are making and living history right now.
During these unprecedented times in our nation's history, the Local History Center is taking the opportunity to bring its public documentation initiative, Your Story is the Peninsula's Story (YSPS) online. With our lives turned upside down with the Coronovirus/COVID-19 breakout, having the ability to contribute remotely is needed now more than ever.
How will this current public health crisis be remembered? I suggest it is much more than the number of cases and deaths; it is how each and every one of us is experiencing it in our day-to-day lives.
I invite you and your family to share your Coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak stories with YSPS Online. Parents and educators, please take this as an opportunity to help your students tell their story.
If you are now working from home, homeschooling your children, being homeschooled, stranded at home after college spring break, or serving your community or neighbors in a different capacity, your photos and reflections will help document this extraordinary event.
Your contributions will help build a resource of primary documentation so future generations can understand the history we are now living. All contributions will become part of the Your Story is the Peninsula’s Story Collection on the Library's digital repository, https://www.palosverdeshistory.org. Every story matters.
To participate, please access the YSPS Online form. (If you do not have a gmail account, required for security reasons, please contact me directly for assistance.). Please share the form link with anyone you think might be interested. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know. I would also be interested in collecting diaries or journals kept during this time as important documentation of Coronavirus 2020.
Stay healthy.
Sincerely,
Monique Sugimoto
msugimoto@pvld.org