NEW YORK, NY.- Over time, the Guggenheim has used many different digital formats and computer programs to handle its electronic communications and administrative record-keeping. As these formats become obsolete the information they contain is at risk. In addition, as Guggenheim staff rapidly moves its daily practices from paper to digital, future archives submissions will be exclusively electronic. In order to properly document the history of the Guggenheim, preservation of electronic records is one of the missions of the Guggenheim Museum Archives.

In 2013, Guggenheim archivists began an 18-month start-up project to develop strategies for the preservation of the Guggenheim’s electronic records. The results of the project lay the necessary groundwork for the Guggenheim to establish a repository that collects, preserves, and makes available institutional records. This includes records unavailable due to technological change, like exhibition memoranda and planning from the 1990s which are in early versions of WordPerfect or executive reports which are stored on Zip disks, as well as current formats that will need to be preserved and migrated to be accessible in the future.

With the help of funds provided by the National Historic Publications and Records Commission, the archives comprehensively inventoried existing electronic records and established procedures that will be used to treat each of them. Special attention was paid to digital content such as e-mail, video, and web archiving.

“With the ability to accept, migrate, store, and monitor the authenticity of electronic records of permanent value, decades of research, from the 1990s to present, will now become part of the Archives’ collections and preserved for future generations of researchers,” said Francine Snyder, Director of the Library and Archives.

A final report (PDF) detailing the Guggenheim’s plan for managing electronic records, as well as project reports related its specific findings, is available on the project website.

The electronic records start-up project was made possible through the generous funding of the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).