Archive of technology, entertainment and everyday life
The Museo del Traje exhibition ¡Extra, Moda! offers a way to view magazines, fashion plates, patterns and garments as parts of one system: the press circulated proposals, while industry and the seasonal calendar shaped their circulation. What the evidence supports—and what it leaves open.
Open storyHousehold recipe books, labels, tins and documents offer ways to approach food as social practice and cultural memory. The Museo da Conserva and several archives provide concrete examples, while also reminding us of the limits of what a collection can establish.
Open storyA cautious reading of the available sources traces three shifts: the appearance of games expressly aimed at adults in the 1970s, a new wave centred in Germany from the end of that decade, and the expansion of the market during the 1990s. Master Mind, Othello and later titles offer reference points, without turning a limited selection into a complete history.
Open storyThe history of Modena’s Museo della Figurina offers a documented example of a private collection of printed images becoming part of a public space devoted to their preservation, study and presentation.
Open storyDigitizing objects can broaden access and support preservation, but an image is not equivalent to an object or to the documentation that explains its provenance, history and meaning. Drawing on the available sources, we examine what changes when museums adopt digital tools—and which limits should remain visible.
Open storyThe Historical Provincial Museum of Santa Fe’s catalogue entry connects its collection with historical periods, everyday life, and religious imagery. Read alongside other institutional records, it shows the potential of archives without treating that potential as evidence for objects or experiences the sources do not describe.
Open storyA museum’s graphic design does more than promote it: it shapes how the public interprets its spaces and collections. Drawing on the supplied studies and materials, this article examines that role and its links to documentation, preservation and access.
Open storyBetween 2002 and 2009, the Cerralbo Museum undertook the recovery of several rooms on its Main Floor. The project combined historical documentation, conservation and restoration, raising a central question: how can a historic interior be made legible again without confusing recovery with free reconstruction?
Open storyThe so-called “1977 Trinity”—Apple, Commodore and Tandy—offers a way to examine how the personal computer began to consolidate as a commercial category. The available evidence also shows the limits of that story: there was no single inventor, nor an instantaneous shift from large institutions to the home.
Open storyThe Museo de Zaragoza’s photographic collection illustrates why preserving images means caring for their different physical supports as well as the information needed to interpret them. Drawing on institutional and academic sources, this article reviews documented principles and their limits.
Open storyFilm history is also shaped between a completed film and its arrival in cinemas. Drawing on sources about Spanish distribution, this article explores distributors’ role, the early twentieth-century context of expansion, debate over the presence of domestic films, and the value of archives preserving traces of this activity.
Open storyPreserving decorative arts is not limited to repairing objects. Documentation, safe access and organised storage also help protect both their physical condition and the information they convey.
Open story
