History in the Making: Archiving 2020 for the Future

History in the Making: Archiving 2020 for the Future, was the first session of History Day 2020.

History Day is a free one-day event that brings together students, researchers and anyone with an interest in history with professionals from libraries, archives and research organisations. This years History Day was held fully online for the first time, and featured numerous live sessions mixed in with pre-recorded content.

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History in the Making: Archiving 2020 for the Future, bought together projects and organisations that have begun work to archive key events in 2020 such as the lockdown and Black Lives Matter. It consisted of five micro-presentations representing a variety of archiving projects, showcasing a variety of responses to the events of 2020. 

Audience members were invited to contribute to an interactive segment, creating their own “archive” of the year 2020.  

Contributors: 

• Jason Webber (British Library, chair) 
• Fiona Courage (Mass Observation) 
• Rhoda Boateng (Black Cultural Archives) 
• Julia Alcamo (All We Have: Stories from the pandemic)  
• Brendan Cormier (Pandemic Objects-V&A) 
• Will Massa (Britain on Lockdown: online video archive-BFI)

This year History Day 2020, was part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, who's theme for 2020 was New Worlds. In November each year the Being Human Festival brings together universities, museums, galleries, archives, independent research organisations, community and commercial partners to make research in the humanities accessible to non-specialist audiences and demonstrate its relevance to our everyday lives. 

^{Photo by Sushil Nash on Unsplash- The people of Manchester break lockdown to join the global Black Lives Matter protests.}