Archiving the Covid-19 pandemic

Collecting statements usually cover:

• Scope - what types of record you collect, what themes, and from where you will collect
• Exclusions - what you don't or won't collect
• Methods of collection - physical, digital or both?
• Terms of acceptance - loan, gift or both? Will you take in records containing sensitive or personal data? What happens to your collections if your group ceases to exist?

Your Covid collecting statement should also contain these things but framed in terms of the specific situation. It needs to cover:

• What sort of material you want? For example, is it digital or physical? Photographs, documents, interviews? Are you collecting artifacts, or only paper material?
• Who do you want it from? Are you doing a specific project, for example 'children's memories of Covid' or are you collecting from a particular community, eg 'Market Langthwaite' residents' experiences?
• What essential characteristics must it have? Eg it should 'cover the response of local businesses' to the pandemic, or 'it should relate to your own families' experiences'. Or it should be 'no more than 20 minutes of audio recording, as an MP4 file'
• What don't you want? Are there things you are not able to look after, eg large objects? Or do you want to exclude very common items, eg 'no newspaper cuttings'?

One of the reasons it is so important to have a robust Covid collecting statement is the importance of the material, and the strength of the feelings it will bring out. The pandemic is one of the biggest things which has happened in most of our lifetimes, and it is still ongoing.

Collecting around current or very recent events isn't the same as looking back over several generations. You will be communicating with people with direct experience of the events you are referring to. Many of those experiences will have been negative, sad, or at least challenging.

The pandemic has included experiences of:

• Differing and strongly held views
• Political affiliation and campaigning
• Feelings of fear and insecurity; anger and resentment
• Sickness & bereavement
• Issues around financial pressure, loss of employment and even hunger
• Mental health impacts

You need to be prepared to handle quite strong reactions, and the clearer your initial plan is, the less likelihood there is of causing unintended offence or distress. Some ways you could avoid causing discomfort or distress are:

• Using sensitive language, and make sure your text has been read by several people before it is released
• Not overly focussing on the 'uplifting' stories - be aware that others may not have felt uplifted
• Emphasise that you're collecting data for the long term, not for idle interest - you may wish to offer closure periods more prominently than you usually would
• Getting specialist advice where you need it - medical ethics, religious sensitivities, legal implications etc. might be outside of your expertise
• Protecting yourselves and your volunteers' wellbeing by offering support

None of these methods are likely to be new to you, but it's always worth thinking them though again in the specific context of the pandemic.