[game_preservation] Swag archive?

[Henry Lowood]

Marty,

I wouldn't consider comic books ephemera (or in the case of buttons, 
artifacts), but publications.   The traditional knock on comic books 
from a library perspective was mostly their status as popular culture 
and the resulting lack of attention to them by researchers.  That has 
all changed.  We have a large collection here at Stanford, as do several 
other libraries; ours was brought in largely as part of the literature 
collections (not my area).   Same for comic novels.

Another difficulty with comic books is their physical fragility, e.g., 
poor paper stock (in most cases) and stapled binding, and their 
susceptibility to theft.  These aspects explain why most libraries place 
comic books in a Special Collections department or other secure area of 
the library, often as non-circulating materials.

Bringing together materials, as you have, around events like the 
Asteroids competition is a perfect solution. 

Henry

Martin Goldberg wrote:

> Henry - I'm certainly familar with a library archive's needs (used to

> work at the UW-Milwaukee library myself).  How would things like comic

> book collections and the like fall in to that documentation context?

> I know the library archive at UW-Milwaukee took a local collector's

> donation of a few boxes full of comics (nothing to extraordinary in it

> from what I remember), and was always curious as to why.

>

> As far as museums - yes, I've found they're more willing to have this

> material on loan for display for portions of time than they are to

> house and archive the material themselves.  That's another reason I

> took up gathering and organizing this sort of material.  Likewise, to

> put items in a documentative context whenever possible - such as the

> 1981 Asteroids compeition material, which was part of a series of

> coin-op competitions Atari held in the US an Canada in '81.

>

>

> Marty

>

> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Henry Lowood <lowood at stanford.edu> wrote:

>   

>> Marty,

>>

>> Remember that I'm in a library, not a museum.   I would expect there to be

>> (potentially) more interest from museums in this sort of material, even if

>> just for exhibition value.  In a library, we are more focused on value as

>> documentation, and that's difficult with this kind of stuff if there is no

>> archival context.

>>

>> Henry

>>

>> Martin Goldberg wrote:

>>

>> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Henry Lowood <lowood at stanford.edu> wrote:

>>

>>

>> and I probably wouldn't accept

>> them (as curator), even as a donation from me, unless they were part of a

>> larger collection that provided some context.

>>

>>

>> That's probably the exact reason why I started archiving this sort of

>> material as part of E2M.  Because the larger organizations, museums,

>> etc. generally don't for those reasons.  And unfortunately, that's

>> also why much of the material I have from ex-employees, etc., would

>> have wound up in the garbage if I hadn't.

>> Marty

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>>

>> --

>> Henry Lowood, Ph.D.

>> Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;

>>  Film & Media Collections

>> HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall

>> Stanford University Libraries

>> Stanford CA 94305-6004

>> 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood

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>>

>>     

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-- 
Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
 Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
<http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>
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