Occupy Wall Street Becomes Highly Collectible

NEW YORK (AP) — It may be only a few months old, but Occupy Wall Street is already collectible.

More than a half-dozen major museums and organizations from the Smithsonian Institution to the New-York Historical Society have been avidly archiving materials produced by the Occupy movement.

Staffers have been sent to occupied parks to rummage for buttons, signs, posters and documents. Websites and tweets have been archived for digital eternity. And museums have approached individual protesters directly to obtain posters and other ephemera.

The Museum of the City of New York is planning an upcoming exhibition focused on the protests.

To keep established institutions from shaping the movement's short history, some protesters have even formed their own archive group.

They have stashed away hundreds of cardboard signs, posters, buttons, documents and banners.