18 Jan
2007
18 Jan
'07
5:23 p.m.
> So the question is what should be saved? Is there
something about the
> 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant?
Well, if you adopt the "only historically
significant" things are to
be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry
Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that
collection was considered not historically significant at the time.
Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution
of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer,
etc.
I think there are some things you can say have obvious historical
value. Others aren't historically significant *by themselves* but
allow you to make a realistic historical portait because they
represent samples of devices over time.
This is an argument that people in archives and museums have to confront
every day when donations come in. If there was infinite conditioned storage
space time/money to process donations, much more would be accepted than
happens in the real world. As a curator, I have to make the decision to
commit CHM's resources to preserve something in perpetuity. From the time
I have spent talking to Doron Swane about the British Science Museum's
collecting policies this is not unique. "You cannot save everything, where
would you put it?" isn't a joke when you are talking about collections expected
to last hundreds of years.
One of the most serious responsibilies that I have, along with the activities of
physical and electronic artifact preservation at CHM is making the decision to
accept an artifact into the collection.
Things created in the PC era and forward are especially difficult, since there
was so much produced in a fairly narrow product niche (personal computers).
Do you need to save EVERY version of a software package (and all of the documentation)?
Remember, storage and processing isn't free.
18 Jan
18 Jan
5:49 p.m.
Al Kossow wrote:
The hardest bit I find is not deciding on what is or isn't obviously of merit
now (whether it be a 'core' item or ephemera), but deciding the fate of things
which might be potentially useful 20 or 30 years down the road when it's the
next generation that are making the decisions on what gets passed over and
what doesn't.
When presented with an offer of a Foobar XYZ it's difficult to decide what to
do when you know that the item is of no immediate use, but quite possibly some
poor soul's going to be scratching around for one 25 years down the line.
(ST506/412 interface hard disks are a good example of this - stockpile now for
a rainy day, or use that space for other "immediate" things and just pray that
you can source a usable drive later when you need it for a restoration?)
Museums are a bit like icebergs, I suppose...
> So the
question is what should be saved? Is there something about the
> 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant?
Well, if you adopt the "only historically
significant" things are to
be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry
Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that
collection was considered not historically significant at the time.
Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution
of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer,
etc.
I think there are some things you can say have obvious historical
value. Others aren't historically significant *by themselves* but
allow you to make a realistic historical portait because they
represent samples of devices over time.
This is an argument that people in archives and museums have to confront
every day when donations come in. If there was infinite conditioned storage
space time/money to process donations, much more would be accepted than
happens in the real world. As a curator, I have to make the decision to
commit CHM's resources to preserve something in perpetuity. isn't a joke when you are talking about
collections expected to last
hundreds of years.
Exactly, and I do keep on bumping into people who only seem capable of
thinking a few years into the future.
Things created in the PC era and forward are
especially difficult, since
there was so much produced in a fairly narrow product niche (personal
computers).
Do you need to save EVERY version of a software package (and all of the
documentation)?
I hear ya. Tough call to make. Somewhere we have an entire collection of
Wordperfect releases taking up space - but you just know that in a few decades
time someone's going to come along wanting to do some major research paper on
the differences between versions of wordprocessor software :-)
cheers
Jules
5:50 p.m.
New subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994
In article <45AFAD2A.7010800 at bitsavers.org>,
Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
One of the most serious responsibilies that I have,
along with the
activities of > physical and electronic artifact preservation at CHM is
making the decision t o > accept an artifact into the collection.
That's entirely understandable and I hear what you're saying. That's
why I think something like the Henry Ford Museum is so awesome -- the
guy had the money to store vast quantities of stuff that otherwise
would be lost or sprinkled around the country and not consolidated in
one place.
Remember, storage and processing isn't free.
As a guy who just loaded 40 linear feet of VMS docs into a closet, I
hear ya :-).
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