CHM Blog
The CHM blog showcases ideas and insights from our vibrant community in Silicon Valley and around the world. We take you behind the scenes of our programming, collections, and exhibits. Connecting the past to the present and into the future, we decode technology for everyone.
Behind the Scenes
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Behind the Scenes
Preservation, Conservation, Restoration: What’s the Difference?
Friday, October 26, 2012
In the course of my work managing CHM’s collections, I often hear people use the terms preservation, conservation, and restoration synonymously. In everyday use, that’s fine. However, these terms actually mean something quite different inside the walls of a museum.
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Behind the Scenes
Bit by Bit: Software Collecting
Friday, October 12, 2012
The collection, preservation and presentation of software artifacts at CHM has been actively pursued during my time as the software curator here, though most of the work has been going on behind the scenes. Since we now have a nice venue for talking about this work with the @CHM blog, I wanted to share with you some of
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Behind the Scenes
Make Software, Change the World!
Friday, October 5, 2012
What is software? You can’t taste it, smell it, or touch it but they say it’s everywhere and it’s changing our lives forever. Since I started working at the Computer History Museum back in 2000, I’ve heard curators, trustees, volunteers, almost everyone, talk about how we need to tell the story of software.
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Behind the Scenes
Lit, Shot and Gigapixeled
Friday, September 28, 2012
Day-to-day my job is to help develop exhibits and to make movies and media for museums. What’s the story? What are the main points? What should the visitor remember when they walk out of the exhibit? It’s not always so easy to figure out the core of what you’re trying to represent.
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Behind the Scenes
Crafting a Digital Repository
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The Computer History Museum had its own mini deluge of historical digital data. Our oral histories, lectures, and exhibition videos were usurping our available server space at over 60 terabytes, with another 10 terabytes of historic digital artifacts including images and software. With the aid of grant funds from Googl
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Behind the Scenes
Conservation of the Fairchild Notebooks
Friday, August 31, 2012
Go behind the scenes of a conservation assessment of a highly anticipated new donation: the Texas Instruments donation of over 1,000 Fairchild Semiconductor patent notebooks.