No one reading this needs a description of how the world has been flipped upside down. What we know today will change tomorrow, and the future is anyone’s guess. What I want to share is my perspective through the archivist lense as we all try to navigate our new normal.

The majority of records that capture the story of Lennox and Addington County come to me after the fact. An event took place, records were created, served their purpose, and then sent to the archives for future research. In some cases, it isn’t until years, decades, centuries later, that stories are witnessed and born from archival records, truths and untruths found. The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing a much more “on the fly” collecting experience with little room for second guessing.

Closure NoticeWe are witnessing, in real time, the event of our lifetime, that event we’ll always remember. Years from now, when you try to explain this pandemic to another person, the feelings you experienced during this time will come back. I can still vividly describe how I was feeling as I watched on TV the plane crashing into the second tower on 9/11 nearly twenty years ago. I’ll remember how I felt during this pandemic in twenty years. And it’s my job to make sure that twenty years, fifty years, a century from now, people interested in L&A County during the COVID-19 pandemic will feel what we feel, understand how things happened and evolved from the facts, and most importantly can learn from our experience, all within the records we inadvertently leave behind and those we choose to leave behind. 

The story of the COVID-19 pandemic in L&A County will be born from individual experiences and from the communities to which we belong. Perhaps you have kids out of school and are working at home, elderly parents in a long-term care home, a business either shut down or reinvented to serve a different purpose, maybe all of the above. We are complex in our communities which makes each one of us unique in how we experience, shape and ultimately cope with the story developing around us. 

Paint SpacingsSo how does an archivist capture history as it unfolds, ensuring that all of these unique voices and experiences are included? And more importantly, how do you make sure you, the reader, are part of the collective story? I don’t have a tidy answer for you but I do know your experience through this matters and will matter greatly in the decades and centuries to come. 

One thing I know for sure after studying and living the history of L&A County day in and day out as your archivist, is that folks around here (and their ancestors) are resilient. In that resiliency, I’m hoping, is a willingness to consider sharing your experiences and feelings, capturing them for future generations. You’re doing this already in photographs, artwork, and social media posts, why not keep a diary, a firsthand account of what you’re witnessing and feeling?

The effort is underway at the Museum and Archives with the COVID-19 Time Capsule. Consider submitting to this site as a start to the enormous job we have ahead of us of first getting to the other side of COVID-19, and then trying to make sense of what happened.

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