If you were to replace the original raster monitor on a vintage Pac-Man arcade game with a modern LCD display, would it still be the same game?
That’s the sort of choice we often must consider as we care for the hundreds of coin-operated games in our collection at The Strong, and while the answer is rarely straightforward, the process of thinking it through is instructive as to the larger question of how you preserve a video game, especially arcade games.
A […]
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Just Like a Nudge: My Hands-On Experience
By: Yan Liu, Collections and Conservation Intern at The Strong National Museum of Play
What does it feel like to intern with the Collections and Conservation Teams at The Strong Museum? For me, it feels like learning how to nudge a pinball machine. In pinball, nudge refers to the subtle bump you give the table to influence the ball’s movement. Before I ever played on a real machine, nudge, in my hazy childhood memories of 3D Pinball Space Cadet, meant tapping […]
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Recreating 100-Year-Old Games for International Day of Play
Have you ever played The Game of Travel? I’m willing to bet you haven’t. It was published in 1894 by Parker Brothers, perhaps most famous for manufacturing Monopoly. How about Hendrik Van Loon’s Wide World Game? That Parkers Brothers game is from 1933. For 2025’s International Day of Play, I teamed up with members of our collections and public programs teams to offer guests the opportunity to play these rare games. Let’s talk about why I chose these games and […]
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How Play Is Preserved
How do you use objects to capture and preserve a concept as abstract as play? For although play stands as a universal phenomenon, it is also a deeply subjective experience, which can look and feel completely different depending on the time, place and people engaging in it. How can anyone, much less an entire museum, adequately convey such a personal and imaginative experience through artifacts in a way that does play justice? In my time as an intern with The […]
The Value of Interns and Museums: Creating Pathways to Careers in Museums
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 […]
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Maximizing Authenticity with New Arcade Preservation and Conservation Methods
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 […]
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A Day in the Life of a Conservation Undergraduate Intern
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 […]
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What’s In A Name….Well, A Lot Actually, Especially When It Comes to Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration
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, […]
Preventive Conservation: Preserving Entire Collections for the Long Term
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 […]
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