Paper short abstract:

During 2020 archives and museums collected both personal memories and artefacts related to the corona outbreak. The aim was to document the unique situation and to save memories for the future. How can the experiencies from this year be used in cooperation between academia and archives and museums?

Paper long abstract:

Many archives and museums express a wish that their collections should be used by scholars at universities, at the same time as they don´t have either staff with research experience or ongoing cooperation with universities. Neither is the collecting made with research interest considered, circumstances that complicates good intentions.

During the corona outbreak, we have seen many initiatives from archives and museums to collect personal memories through different methods combined with collection of artefacts and documents related to the pandemic. In this unexpected situation, museums and archives had the opportunity to be more “fast-footed” than scholars from the universities, where there seldom is possible to leave ongoing projects in order to collect data in an acute situation.

I want to discuss how the experiencies from the efforts made by museums and archives during 2020 can be used to develop the cooperation between academia and museums and archives also in other matters than the pandemic. Are there differences concerning methods and ethical regulations that complicates cooperation? Can these differences become a positive challenge that can develop methods and practices among researchers as well as at museums and archives? Can academia inspire and improve collection practices with theoretical framework? In the work with documenting current phenomena, museums and archives mean to collect for the future and for forthcoming research, but will that happen when the ties between them and academia are weak? What differences are there in the understanding of the words “collect” and “research” within these two sectors?