Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is pleased to announce it will begin its first major initiative to address the conservation needs of digital materials in 2017. Supported by the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, the Digital Collection Materials Project will serve to set standards, practices, and strategies related to digital materials in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. Of the more than 210,000 design objects in the collection, it is estimated that roughly 150 items incorporate information conveyed in a digital form. Many of these objects are home and office electronics, personal computing and mobile devices, and media players with interfaces that span both hardware and software. Among the 150 items, there are also born digital works–examples of design that originated in electronic form that are saved as digital data. These include both creative and useful software applications, as well as media assets, such as videos and computer-aided designs.
The first phase of the Digital Collection Materials Project will be the design and execution of a collection survey. The second phase will be case studies of select objects. The final phase will synthesize the survey results and case study findings in order to determine recommendations for a strategic plan of care, preservation, and responsible acquisition of digital materials for the collection.
Top Row: Digital Content, Neato Interface Interactive, 2013; Source Code, Tall Green Bloom Urn, 2012; Thermostat, Nest Learning Thermostat, Second Generation, 2012; Bottom Row: iPod Nano Digital Media Player, 2009; Palm Vx Personal Digital Assistant And Stylus, 1999; Jawbone UP Fitness Tracker Wristband, 2011
The historical core of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s collection is comprised of objects selected by the museum’s founders, Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt, to document outstanding technical and artistic accomplishments in the decorative arts. Established in 1897 as an educational resource for The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Cooper Hewitt’s collection continues to expand to encompass a range of materials exemplifying the broad category of human ingenuity and artistry that today we call design. The diversity of the museum’s collection exemplifies the core institutional belief that design is best understood through process, a framework that fosters understanding of human activity as it intersects with many materials and technologies, including the important fields of interface design, interaction design, and user experience design.
The Digital Collections Materials Project will help preserve long-term access to digital materials in the collection while maintaining the integrity of the designs they express. It will also allow Cooper Hewitt to move forward responsibly with acquisitions in the exciting realm of digital design. Since digital materials are especially vulnerable to the deleterious effects of technological obsolescence and decay, which can lead to inaccessibility and information loss, there is an urgent need to address the conservation needs of digital materials in the collection. It is with an eye to these materials’ cultural significance and vulnerability that the museum moves forward with the Digital Collection Materials Project.
This project received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.