“Everyone’s a Curator”: Identifying the Everyday Curator

The process of curating objects to construct cultural narratives and to tell stories has traditionally been reserved for credentialed professionals in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. However, the rise of the World Wide Web and, with it, the online access to digitized cultural heritage images and objects, has seen the increase of curatorial activities among other groups, including everyday users of digitized materials. This article focuses on identifying and categorizing the characteristics of those who are engaged in this everyday curation process. Using an existing Pinterest dataset, the researchers developed a rubric for understanding these “everyday curators.” After defining curation, this article outlines the methodology used to devise and classify the everyday curator rubric, shares the results of applying this rubric to the Pinterest dataset, and discusses several implications for cultural heritage professionals.