I get the same feeling; every time a museum or archive expands its collection, it's taking on a long-term responsibility for those objects.
Put your discovered objects in a warehouse, now their survival is conditional on the continued funding of whatever institution owns the building. If the items are in fancy climate-controlled storage units, who will maintain the air conditioning and pay the electricity bill for the next ten, fifty, or a hundred years?
I'm sure people who work at archives have to think about these questions on time-scales much longer than those offered by grants or rounds of charity fundraising.
Put your discovered objects in a warehouse, now their survival is conditional on the continued funding of whatever institution owns the building. If the items are in fancy climate-controlled storage units, who will maintain the air conditioning and pay the electricity bill for the next ten, fifty, or a hundred years?
I'm sure people who work at archives have to think about these questions on time-scales much longer than those offered by grants or rounds of charity fundraising.