Samantha Owens, Ben Fino-Radin, and Steven O’Banion
Electronic Media Review, Volume Seven: 2021-2022
ABSTRACT
When developing a program of care, policies, procedures, and infrastructure for time-based media conservation, ensuring feasibility and correct scale of ambition is of paramount importance – no matter the scale of the institution.
Over the past seven years, Glenstone Museum has developed a time-based media conservation practice that is aligned with the spirit of best practices, yet commensurate with its small conservation department. With the help of outside expertise, Glenstone has been able to find what “best practice” means for them, and develop practices for the care of the media collection. Ben Fino-Radin of Small Data Industries was a partner in this project, working in tandem with the conservators at Glenstone to assess the collection and develop an achievable and sustainable digital preservation strategy, while balancing the need for condition assessment, preventive conservation, and digitization for time-based media works in the collection.
The selection and creation of the storage solution for digital art required significant research and testing, and then ultimately the chosen solution was changed after realizing it was too labor-intensive, impractical for the small team. Local storage, which was initially avoided due to the work that would be required from the museum’s small IT department, was ultimately selected and implemented, as it was the most cost-effective in the long term. With the museum’s time-based media collection continuing to grow, it was clear that setting up a well-structured system now would pay off down the line. After implementation and testing, the media collection backlog started to be processed and ingested one by one, with new issues addressed and solved as needed. As part of this process, a new cataloguing strategy for time-based media was developed in collaboration with the Registration department, in order to accurately and systematically distinguish between artwork materials, digital files, and exhibition equipment.
The process of addressing the backlog is still ongoing, but due to the structure put in place, new media artworks are acquired systematically with information gathered prior to and during acquisition to ensure that future preservation needs are anticipated. Continued collaboration has proven valuable in addressing new concerns in a way that both fits the needs of the artwork as well as the expertise and availability of the museum staff.
AUTHORS
Samantha Owens
Glenstone, Potomac, MD, US
Ben Fino-Radin
Small Data Industries, New York, NY, US
Steven O’Banion
Glenstone, Potomac, MD, US