In Smashing Magazine, Alexey Pomigalov and Alexander Andreev of DataArt trace the evolution of DataArt’s IT Museum, discuss how recent innovations informed their approach, and suggest what you can do to help preserve IT history.
“What turns a collection into a museum? We think it’s the context. Put old dusty hardware into historical, social, or cultural surroundings to explain their historical significance, and the stories come alive.”
“We realized we needed to focus on the specific story behind these relics, a story relevant to us and one only we could tell. Our collection might not be the most complete, but it would be perfect for the story we want to tell. For us, as a company founded by Eastern Europeans and at the very beginning hiring predominantly from this region, the choice was obvious. We decided to start with the IT story of the former Soviet bloc — from East Germany to Armenia.”
“We wanted to share the untold history and highlight the forgotten heroes of East and Central European IT, as well as learn about the details of their everyday jobs in the context of the industry’s strategic plans, along with the official and unofficial cultural scenes in the background.”
“Our museum is a balance between CSR and marketing projects. It’s consistent with the DataArt corporate culture, as we generally look upon ourselves as geeks, people interested in digging deeper than they must. At the same time, we’re glad to use our resources to help potential researchers. That’s why we add original audio, and sometimes video, to our projects — we would be glad to share full versions of our recordings with historians, social anthropologists, or scholars of any kind.”
Original article can be found here.
