A lot of institutions have started gathering information in forms of photographs, field interviews and mass surveys to gain better understanding on how the pandemic is impacting everyday life.

Maria Hagstrup, the curator of the Vesthimmerlands Museum in northern Denmark, and a fellow colleague have snapped photographs of empty streets and stores to keep in mind the social distancing measures in place. “… Right now, we have a chance to get people’s impressions at the moment, before they’ve even had time to reflect on them.”

Institutions in Denmark, Switzerland and Slovenia developed their methods of preserving information by requesting memoirs from citizens and collecting physical objects that brush upon various aspects of the outbreak.

Curators at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum are also drawing up plans to acquire items in the time of coronavirus. Meanwhile, The National Museum of Denmark has started presenting questionnaires to a large number of citizens asking them how they’re coping with COVID-19. “Whether or when we will have a special coronavirus exhibition, I don’t know,” said the museum’s head of research, Christian Sune Pedersen, to the publication. “Maybe we will consider including it in the permanent collection since it is a central historical event. But right now, our focus is on remembering what happens in our everyday lives, which goes to the core of the museum’s vision.”