![]() Private records are being produced by for-profit and not-for-profit organizations as well as private individuals and families. Public records are being produced by all levels of government some of these public records are administrative and reflect the workings of government and others are official communications and pronouncements. ![]() All are produced in the course of daily activities. What kinds of records are now being produced about the COVID-19 pandemic? There are two main categories of records: public records and private records. It is likely, however, that LAC would have acquired Pettigrew’s material if they had had adequate resources to deal with the collection, given its national importance. Pettigrew’s collection was eventually deposited in the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, where it is now publicly accessible (although not digitally)-a positive outcome that came about only as a result of her family’s public plea for an archival home. Her interviews, conducted in the 1970s, are irreplaceable first-hand accounts of the pandemic. Pettigrew’s book, although intended for a popular audience, was the first full-length study of Canada’s experience during the flu pandemic. ![]() To give an example, in 2012, the LAC declined Eileen Pettigrew’s research papers, and the tapes of nearly 50 interviews with influenza pandemic survivors, conducted for her 1983 book Silent Enemy: Canada and the Deadly Flu of 1918 ( Pettigrew 1983). ![]() Many government archives at all levels, including Library and Archives Canada (LAC), our national archives, have significantly reduced their collection of nongovernmental records, because of a lack of resources-reversing an earlier model of “total archives” preservation that had shaped government archives since the 1970s. The preservation of a diversity of COVID-19 records is made more challenging by the long-standing neglect of memory institutions in Canada. ![]()
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