ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the ways in which contemporary collecting might also involve acquiring the unprecedented, and the particular challenges posed by computer-based collections. It presents how computer technology has an innate duality in its structure – it is at once both hardware-dependent software and software-dependent hardware – each with its individual set of challenges, exacerbated by the rapid rate of computer technology development. To use the terms employed by Smithsonian curatorial staff, computer hardware can be understood as a “black box," its internal processes remaining hidden. This chapter also establishes how objects that exist solely in a digital format cannot easily follow the collecting precedent of material objects in the same way that three-dimensional hardware is able. It then suggests how, in terms of the object type, the museum has no ready precedent to follow when dealing with the challenges that digital-format objects present. This chapter includes case studies such as the contemporary collecting efforts of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History after the events of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, as well as excerpts from interviews with the following museum professionals: David K. Allison (NMAH); Joyce Bedi (NMAH); Tilly Blyth (Science Museum, London); David Brock (Computer History Museum); Paul Ceruzzi (National Air and Space); Sebastian Chan and Aaron Straup Cope (former Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design); Alicia Cutler (NMAH); Michelle Delaney (Smithsonian Institution); Bernard S. Finn (NMAH); Stevan Fisher (NMAH); Hansen Hsu (Computer History Museum); Stacy Kluck (NMAH); Shannon Perich (NMAH); Nancy Proctor (former Smithsonian Institution); Dag Spicer (Computer History Museum); Harold Wallace (NMAH); Marc Weber (Computer History Museum); and Helena Wright (NMAH).
