Artifact Conservation Archive

Internships are typically a rite of passage for most students in undergraduate and graduate programs with goals of ultimately working in a museum. Internships provide a unique opportunity for students to test the waters and explore various career paths, while learning what working in a certain position or institution may really be like. Internships are greatly beneficial because they provide the ever so important hands-on experience for a student, allowing a practical application of the theories, practices, and ethics that […]

Continue Reading about The Value of Interns and Museums: Creating Pathways to Careers in Museums Published on:
March 7, 2025

What does it mean to preserve an experience? Think about going to the beach. Can you feel the hot sand on your feet? Can you smell the ocean air? Now think of an arcade cabinet. The Arcade Conservation Lab at The Strong National Museum of Play is responsible for the physical conservation and preservation of arcade and pinball games, including the preservation of the experience of playing these games as originally intended. We keep and maintain original CRT monitors that […]

Continue Reading about Maximizing Authenticity with New Arcade Preservation and Conservation Methods Published on:
February 13, 2025

As an undergraduate intern working with The Strong Museum’s Conservator in the summer of 2024, I spent my days working on a large variety of projects related to the museum’s enormous collection. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes at The Strong to produce and maintain the playful exhibits that the museum is known for, and it has been wonderful to see just a snapshot of the process. To commemorate my time at The Strong so far, I […]

Continue Reading about A Day in the Life of a Conservation Undergraduate Intern Published on:
October 28, 2024

Collections care terms can be utterly confusing, even among trained museum professionals. A term a registrar may use could be completely different from a director or an art preparator, and may not ultimately have detrimental outcomes for the misused term. But misusing the terms conservation, preservation, or restoration could leave your collections items or personal artifacts in the wrong hands for care.
What is Conservation?
Conservation encompasses all the actions taken toward the long-term care of cultural heritage. Activities include examination, […]

Continue Reading about What’s In A Name….Well, A Lot Actually, Especially When It Comes to Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration Published on:
August 28, 2024

Have you ever heard the saying ”an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.?”  A truer saying couldn’t be more appropriate for the preservation and care of collections. Spending funds and energy proactively on preventive care is the most efficient way to preserve an entire collection for the long term, rather than reacting and treating damage that has already occurred to an individual object. Any type of action that can be implemented to mitigate the agents of deterioration—physical […]

Continue Reading about Preventive Conservation: Preserving Entire Collections for the Long Term Published on:
March 18, 2024

In the very few movies that have depicted museum staff, the characters have usually worn little white cotton gloves when handling precious collections items (for example, 2004’s National Treasure, where an archivist helps protect the Declaration of Independence from being stolen).  When I tell people I work in a museum, they almost always mention or ask about the white cotton gloves.  But is that a realistic depiction of how actual museum staff handle collections? 
Are gloves necessary for handling collections? 
As part […]

Continue Reading about To Glove or Not to Glove: Wearing Gloves for Collections Published on:
September 15, 2023

As an extremely active collecting museum, The Strong National Museum of Play is home to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play. While it’s our mission to collect and preserve artifacts, sometimes the items we collect have the potential to cause harm, whether that’s from the inherent materials that were used during production, materials that were added to the artifact later, or artifacts that pose risks from handling. While some obvious collection items that […]

Continue Reading about Hazardous Materials in Collections Published on:
June 2, 2023

The once pejorative term “walking simulator” was often deployed to single out video games that bucked the trend of delivering a fast-paced, action-packed, adrenaline-pumping experience with clear-cut rules and goals and instead opted for making video games organized by a thin set of rules and optional tasks in favor of open-ended wandering and exploration. These days, walking simulators show promise as they rise in popularity, signaling an important shift in interest among developers and gamers alike toward nuance, discovery, and […]

Continue Reading about Simulation, Photography, and Flâneurie In Video Games Published on:
October 28, 2021

In 2018, The Strong embarked on a project to digitize floppy disks using a device called the Kryoflux to capture the data stored on 3.5- and 5.25-inch floppy disks. Reading a floppy disk in the 21st century was the first step necessary to preserve hundreds of floppy disks in The Strong’s archival collections. In some cases, the Kryoflux was a useful tool to capture old games and development materials but, with more than 1,500 floppy disk images in […]

Continue Reading about Digging for GEM icons in an Atari ST Floppy Disk Published on:
April 28, 2020