Students as historians

Came across this interesting piece directed at students and how they can contribute to the historical record by documenting their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Check it out...

While finishing up hectic finals schedules and trying to sort out summer plans, it can be tempting to only focus  on when this will be over –– when students can return to campus, see their friends again and resume “normal” activities. Given how all-consuming the news surrounding the pandemic has become, it’s no surprise that the focus remains how to get through it. Everyone wants this to be over soon. But, it is equally important to document the small ways the virus has impacted everyday life — to recognize and record its effects. By writing, journaling and creating, students can play a role in the collection of history... [continue reading in the Daily Trojan].

Students should make a record of their life during the coronavirus pandemic - Daily Trojan

What historians will see

There was a particularly good feature in the New York Times on how universities and institutions are encouraging people to document life during this pandemic. A few highlights...

StoryCorps, the story-sharing nonprofit, moved its platform online for the first time... 

Students at Neumann University in Pennsylvania set up a series called the Coronavirus Diaries on the school’s radio station, WNUW-FM... 

“A century ago, people told their stories in written journals,... Now, we are capturing people’s thoughts and experiences through social media posts, email, audio and photographs.”... [continue reading in the New York Times].

What Historians Will See When They Look Back on the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 - New York Times

Museums engage rapid response teams

A few more museum initiatives on documenting life during a pandemic:

London's Victoria and Albert Museum has
put its Rapid Response Collecting team to work

Museums Scramble to Document the Pandemic, Even as It Unfolds - New York Times

Around the world, the coronavirus outbreak has sent legions of emergency medical and health care workers into overdrive. But it has also meant work for a handful of curators and museum researchers in Europe, charged with tracking the events and implications of the crisis, even as it happens. Most of them do not know exactly how or when their findings will be used, but they are confident that future generations of museum workers — and visitors — will want the information... [continue reading the New York Times article].

The International Center of Photography
is collecting on Instagram (#ICPConcerned)

Museums Are Urgently Collecting Homemade Masks and Other Ephemera From the Coronavirus Pandemic to Document History as It Unfolds - ArtNet

Curators call the practice "urgent response collecting"... As many of our minds are focused on how to fight the spread of disease, museums are thinking about how to best document this unique period in history and to preserve elements of the crisis as it unfolds... As a starting point for the current crisis, the Museum of the City of New York and the International Center of Photography are both utilizing Instagram (under the respective hashtags #CovidStoriesNYC and #ICPConcerned)... [continue reading on ArtNet for more initiatives].

Canadian Museum of Human Rights: Acts of Kindness

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is asking,
"What acts of kindness have lifted your spirits
during the Covid-19 pandemic?” 

The UK based Museums Association has created guidelines for how museums should go about collecting pandemic-related content, as well as a toolkit.

In How are museums collecting during coronovirus shutdown? the association profiles 10 museums and their COVID-19 collection efforts, nine in the United Kingdom, and one in Canada(!).

Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Winnipeg 

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is asking people to create and share videos responding to the question: “What acts of kindness have lifted your spirits during the Covid-19 pandemic?” Selected videos will then appear on the museum’s website (there are 16 videos so far).

To read what the nine UK museums are doing, continue reading on the association's website.

Royal BC Museum: Collecting For Our Time

I posted a few days ago about two interesting initiatives around diarizing life during COVID-19: Documenting life during a pandemic. Since then, I've heard a few more such stories, so will continue this as a little series, as I find them. 

Royal BC Museum - COVID-19: Collecting For Our Time

The Royal BC Museum recently launched a project that invites British Columbians to share stories of their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Collecting For Our Time demontrates how museums are evolving as spaces for reflection and dialog. By seeking contributions from the community, the project is also educating the public how and why museums collect. This involvement will help all of us treasure the long-term value of the collection.

"Right now we’re collecting information. So write to us at forourtime@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca. Tell us what you think should be captured for the future. What do you think will best tell generations to come who we were and what we lived through? You can send us a few lines, a link to a tweet, a photo or a poem... [continue reading on the RBCM website]."

Documenting life during a pandemic

Today I listened to TWO interesting CBC Radio shows about pandemic diaries: who's keeping them, and why, and how they have value beyond the personal. It turns out there are a few initiatives to encourage recording this period for their historical value. A few highlights from each:

'We want it all': Keeping a COVID-19 diary? It could help future historians — and your mental health - The Current

Dr. Karen Blair, an assistant professor of psychology at St. Francis Xavier University... is part of a team that's collecting diary entries from those in the thick of isolation. They hope to shed light on how the pandemic is affecting mental health. Each day, participants check in with a short survey. Some even share details about their experiences that day."

It's so interesting that I have joined the COVID-19 Diary Study project.

The Current story resources
Keeping a COVID-19 diary? It could help future historians - podcast episode and transcript
COVID-19 Diary Study - join Dr. Karen Blair's project

National Museum of Denmark's
Christian Sune Pedersen is leading the journal project

Danes are sending their quarantine journals to the national museum - Day 6

"Lots of people are turning to social media to chronicle the monotony of quarantine, peppered with the brief excitement of sourdough starters and family kitchen parties. But folks in Denmark are taking it a step further, by sending pages of their lockdown journals to the national museum to preserve them for posterity. Conveniently, Denmark already has a blueprint for the journal experiment..."

They've done it before, in 1992 (when they received 51,000 entries) and again in 2017. An interesting listen.

Day 6 story resources
Danes are sending their quarantine journals to the national museum - podcast episode and transcript
National Museum of Denmark - official website (19 museums/sites)