The Archivo de Respuestas Emergencias de Puerto Rico, or the Emergency Response Archive of Puerto Rico, is a digital open access repository of Puerto Rican artifacts of disaster pertaining to Hurricanes Irma and María (2017), the Guayanilla earthquakes (2020), and COVID-19 (2020). We see these artifacts as necessary to preserve the stories of survivors within our cultural memory; they also highlight effective disaster response strategies, counter inaccurate media narratives about Puerto Rico, serve as an educational resource about climate change and colonialism, and provide a meaningful resource for the public.

Deliverables of this project include:

--An open access digital repository built in Omeka S

--Development of a robust suite of open source software extensions supporting community archiving

--Digitization of disaster response documents from seven partner organizations

--Transcription and translation of oral histories in both English and Spanish

--Bilingual metadata of oral histories in both English and Spanish

--Copycat collections housed at the Digital Library of the Caribbean and Michigan State University’s digital repository

--Meaningful data packages for each participating organization, comprising copies of AREPR’s complete data set

--A white paper outlining best practices for humanities researchers engaging in effective and ethical disaster preparedness and response