Computer technology has transformed modern society, yet curators wishing to reflect those changes face difficult challenges in terms of both collecting and exhibiting. Collecting and Exhibiting Computer-Based Technology examines how curators at the history and technology museums of the Smithsonian Institution have met these challenges. Focusing on the curatorial process, the book explores the ways in which curators at the institution have approached the accession and display of technological artifacts. Such collections often have comparatively few precedents, and can pose unique dilemmas. In analysing the Smithsonian’s approach, Foti takes in diverse collection case studies ranging from DNA analyzers to Herbie Hancock’s music synthesizers, from iPods to born-digital photographs, from the laptop used during the filming of the television program Sex and the City to "Stanley" the self-driving car. Using her proposed model of "expert curation", she synthesizes her findings into a more universal framework for undertanding the curatorial methods associated with computer technology and reflects on what it means to be a curator in a postdigital world. Collecting and Exhibiting Computer-Based Technology offers a detailed analysis of curatorial practice in a relatively new field that is set to grow exponentially. It will be useful reading for curators, scholars, and students alike.

Museums and the History of Computing examines the critical role that cultural organizations, such as museums and galleries, play in shaping ‘digital heritage’: the cultural heritage surrounding computer technology. Focusing on digital technologies as objects and practices that museums collect, exhibit, and preserve for the future, this book highlights how and why museums play a crucial role in preserving the rich heritage of the digital world, constructing powerful narratives that help make it relevant to the public. It demonstrates that the museum can be a powerful means of safeguarding and interpreting ephemeral and continually changing digital technology, offering new pathways for rethinking the very meaning of digital objects and practices in contemporary societies. It provides practices and strategies for the preservation and exhibition of computing artifacts and ways to accommodate and respond to narratives about histories of computing that circulate in the public arena. Bringing together leading museum and university researchers and practitioners, and mobilizing cross-cutting debates and approaches in areas such as museum studies, cultural heritage, history of technology, anthropology, and media studies, this book challenges us to think critically about what ‘digital’ is when examined not only as a tool but as a cultural object deserving of attention and a place within the museum. Museums and the History of Computing is for museum studies students and researchers as well as museum practitioners – especially those with an interest in digital technology and heritage. It will be of interest to researchers and students interested in histories of computing and digital media and in digital media studies.

Ethics of Contemporary Collecting addresses pressing and pertinent issues around ethical contemporary collecting, reflecting on how practices are evolving or in flux. Across three sections, each containing live sector subjects from the climate crisis to digital collecting to centring communities, this book collates a combination of case studies and in-depth chapters by leading practitioners working in the field. These pieces are instructive and provide practical, transferable examples of how people have approached these challenges. It highlights examples of leading practice in the field and illustrates ethical approaches to contemporary collecting as work in this area progresses and our conversations about it advance. To reflect this ongoing growth, the book closes with an ‘Activations’ section of discussion prompts intended to keep the conversations and progress – on individual, institutional and societal levels – going. Ethics of Contemporary Collecting is an indispensable tool for informing, training and educating the next generation of curators and collection professionals, and inspiring future collecting projects.

The Private Collector’s Museum connects the rising popularity of private museums with evolving models of collecting and philanthropy, and new inter-relationships between private and public space. It examines how contemporary collectors construct museums to frame themselves as cultural arbiters of global distinction. By exploring a range of in-depth contemporary case studies, the book aims for a more complex understanding of the private collector’s museum, assessing how it is realised, funded and understood in a broader cultural context. It examines the ways in which this particular museum model has evolved within a historical Western tradition of collecting and museum-building, and considers how private museums will endure alongside their public counterparts. It also sheds light on the shifting patterns of collecting, such as the transition of personal art collections into the public sphere. The developments are situated within the wider context of private–public engagement in general. Providing a new analysis of philanthropy, public access and the museum, The Private Collector’s Museum is essential reading for scholars and students interested in the private museum, and key reading for those interested in related issues.

The educational game "von Neumann Computer Game" can be used in schools to teach pupils the basic principles of how a computer works, based on the von Neumann architecture, in a playful and step-by-step manner. The game can also be used in the museum education of computer museums and technology museums as well as in adult education. The goal of the "von Neumann Computer Game" is to playfully recreate the information logistics in the computer, how, under the supervision of the control unit, data is transferred from the memory to the computing unit, processed there, and stored back. The processes are controlled by the control unit with a program. The processes in the control unit and in the arithmetic unit are played by one pupil each. Each piece of information is represented as a number by a pupil with a sign. The seats in the class become storage locations of numerical data. In the class, the pupils carry the information back and forth on signs. The "von Neumann Computer Game" can be used in didactics for the subjects computer science, mathematics and media literacy. The game can be used in schools, where it can be played in the classroom, and in exhibition rooms of museums, where it can be guided by museum education. It can be played from grade 3 and up and covers only elementary arithmetic operations of plus, minus, times and division. Depending on the grade level, the game can be played at different levels of difficulty. In grade 10, for example, the values of a polynomial of degree 3 can be calculated step by step. The "von Neumann Computer Game" can be used not only in schools but also in adult education to acquire media competence or in retraining programs to teach learners the basic principles of how a computer works. The "von Neumann Computer Game" can be taught at universities and colleges of education for teacher training in courses on didactics for the subjects of computer science, mathematics and media competence. In terms of media theory, the game is of interest because it opens a rift to the immeasurable space of human creativity in the field of software development and software application, which can take place on hardware that at first seems a bit brittle.

This Third Edition is the first English-language edition of the award-winning Meilensteine der Rechentechnik; illustrated in full color throughout in two volumes. The Third Edition is devoted to both analog and digital computing devices, as well as the world's most magnificient historical automatons and select scientific instruments (employed in astronomy, surveying, time measurement, etc.). It also features detailed instructions for analog and digital mechanical calculating machines and instruments, and is the only such historical book with comprehensive technical glossaries of terms not found in print or in online dictionaries. The book also includes a very extensive bibliography based on the literature of numerous countries around the world. Meticulously researched, the author conducted a worldwide survey of science, technology and art museums with their main holdings of analog and digital calculating and computing machines and devices, historical automatons and selected scientific instruments in order to describe a broad range of masterful technical achievements. Also covering the history of mathematics and computer science, this work documents the cultural heritage of technology as well.

A media history of simulation that contextualizes our digital heritage and the history of computing. In Computing Legacies, Peter Krapp explores a media history of simulation to excavate three salient aspects of digital culture. Firstly, he profiles simulation as cultural technique, enabling symbolic work and foregrounding hypothetical literacy. Secondly, he positions simulation as crucial for the preservation of cultural memory, where modeling, emulation, and serious play are constitutive in how we relate to our mediated history. And lastly, despite suggestions that we may already live in a simulation, he interrogates how simulation can serve as critique of the computer age. In tracing our digital heritage, Computing Legacies elucidates inflection points where quantitative data becomes tractable for qualitative evaluations: modeling epidemics for scientific study or entertainment, emulating older devices, turning numerical calculations into music, conducting espionage in virtual worlds, and gamifying higher education. Simulation, this book demonstrates, is pivotal not only to high-tech research and to archives, museums, and the preservation of digital culture but also to our understanding of what it is to live and work under the technical conditions of computing.

Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums is the first scholarly book to analyze contemporary African American museums from a multifaceted perspective. While it puts a spotlight on the issues and challenges related to racial politics that black museums collectively face in the 21st century, it also shines a light on how they intersect with corporate culture, youth culture, and the broader cultural world. Turning the lens to philanthropy in the contemporary era, Banks throws light on the establishment side of African American museums and demonstrates how this contrasts with their grassroots foundations. Drawing on over 80 in-depth interviews with trustees and other supporters of African American museums across the United States, this book offers an inside look at the world of cultural philanthropy. While patrons are bound together by being among the distinct group of cultural philanthropists who support black museums, the motivations and meanings underlying their giving depart in both subtle and considerable ways depending on race and ethnicity, profession, generation, and lifestyle. Revealing not only why black museums matter in the eyes of supporters, the book also complicates the conventional view that social class drives giving to cultural nonprofits. It also paints a vivid portrait of how diversity colors cultural philanthropy, and philanthropy more broadly, in the 21st century. Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums will be a valuable resource for scholars and practitioners engaged with African American heritage. It will also offer important insights for academics, as well as cultural administrators, nonprofit leaders, and fundraisers who are concerned with philanthropy and diversity.

The Personalization of the Museum Visit examines a fundamental shift in institutional behavior in museums located in the United States and the United Kingdom. Contending that art museums have moved toward a new paradigm of public engagement, it posits that modern museum visitors are treated as self-directed "clients", with the agency to make meaning for themselves. The book then considers how this change has come about, examining factors such as the onset of a new museology, an experience economy, and a marketing revolution. Drawing on extensive research undertaken at Britain’s Tate Modern, the book examines a range of issues, including visitor engagement, curatorial practice, and museum management. A visit experience that is customizable to the individual visitor, in which curators and marketers work together with visitor-clients to create an experience of personalized meaning, is, Rodney argues, rising in prevalence in the art museum field, but it is also being stymied by certain structural impediments. This book examines such obstacles, including institutional division of labor, long-standing conceptions, or misconceptions, of the museum’s mission, and the orientation of museums toward a certain conceptual model of their visitors. The Personalization of the Museum Visit is essential reading for scholars and students engaging with issues of visitor engagement, curatorial practice, and museum management. With a particular focus on the role of business interests and public policy, the book should also be of interest to those undertaking research in fields outside of museum and visitor studies.

Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship makes a contribution towards building a museum perspective of innovation that takes into consideration the unique role of museums in society. Beginning and ending with the idea of museum innovation in a wider sense, the book takes digital innovation as a particular focus. Drawing on innovation theories from business studies and case studies from national museums in the US and the UK, as well as numerous examples of innovative museum projects around the globe, the author unpacks, in practical terms, what it means for museums to be innovative and socially enterprising. As a result, Eid presents a research-based model of innovation in museums, which is flexible enough to be fully or partially adopted by any museum, regardless of size, location, mission or nature of the collections it houses. As such, this model makes innovation in museums scalable, replicable and feasible to start and operate. Supplying the museum studies field with essential terminologies and conceptual frameworks related to innovation, Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship helps to forge new ideas and create common ground with other disciplines. Therefore, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and graduate students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, digital humanities and business studies. It should also be of great interest to practitioners working in museums around the globe.