Josephine Jenks, Jessica Walthew, and Andrea Lipps
Electronic Media Review, Volume Seven: 2021-2022
ABSTRACT
As Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum builds its nascent born-digital collection, new genres of work are regularly introduced, each with their own acquisition and preservation needs. This paper focuses on the museum’s first effort to collect instances of interactive data journalism. Serving as case studies are three digital stories by a major news outlet, two of which center on the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the ongoing acquisition process, Cooper Hewitt is prioritizing public access and hands-on interaction. As our nation’s design museum, our emphasis on collecting these works is centered on how the design and interaction enhance information access. These values led to three main areas of research: evaluation of web archiving and recording; an audit of previous web-based acquisitions; and an exploration into GitHub as a repository management tool. While web recording is routine practice at many libraries and archives—many of which are generous in sharing their knowledge of the available tools—museums may have different goals. For this project, Cooper Hewitt delved into the histories and technical features of various web archiving services. To fully understand their advantages and limitations, it proved useful to revisit a selection of older, interactive web-based works in the collection. The lessons learned from previous acquisitions also provided a starting point for further research into GitHub’s potential as a transparent, accessible repository for collections assets’ source code. A more robust presence on the platform by Cooper Hewitt would meet digital designers where they are and complement secure storage in the museum’s digital asset management system. Research on web archives and GitHub as tools for museum collections helps further the dual aims of broadening public access to and maintaining interactivity in digital design. Central to these case studies is the reciprocal relationship between preservation and access, and a vision for how collecting institutions might harness one to further the other.
AUTHORS
Josephine Jenks
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York, NY, US
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY, US
Jessica Walthew
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY, US
Andrea Lipps
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY, US