Stewardship and COVID-19: The Preservation of Human Experience

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, museums, archives, and historical organizations are actively collecting material documenting these unusual times. The Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science is one of the institutions active in this contemporaneous collecting. While this type of collecting follows in the footsteps of previous local efforts to document atypical times, I am no longer of the opinion this type of collecting—rapid response—should be doctrine or an expectation for 21st century curators. This article addresses the importance of democratizing trends in the museum field and allowing the curator, or person taking on the responsibility of collecting, to evaluate if one is truly capable of pursuing this type of collecting.