The nature of software is philosophically problematic. In practical terms, a programme of acquisition and conservation is technically forbidding as well as resource-intensive. This article attempts to locate software as an artefact in the material culture of museums and explores some of our preconceptions and expectations for a software conservation programme. The purpose of this article is to explore museological aspects of software. The issues raised are concerned less with computing as an historiographic tool than with computing as an object of historical study.
Museums are part of an object-centred culture.
Their essential justification is the acquisition, preservation and study of physical artefacts. Physical objects, their meaning, significance and their care, dominate a curator's professional psyche. One of the first tasks, then, is to locate software in the artefactual landscape. We have a conflict. If what distinguishes software is something non-physical, and software is in some sense irreducibly abstract, then it falls outside the mandate of material culture and a conscientious museum curator might have qualms about mobilising resources to acquire and preserve it.