Vintage Computer Museum - Curator's make historical microcomputer collection organized !

The collection of our historical microcomputers and computer memorabilia has been in the making for more than 40 years. During the last 5 years we have been developing a small representative display here in Floyd Virginia. This is a work in progress and I have been greatly assisted by three Summer student office assistants (Curators). In addition to helping with the small display the total collection is in the process of being entered into a digital database.  A lot of work goes into making the collection useful, displays, video's, web presence, data entry, moving lot of computer things, picture taking, story boards, recordings, cleaning, packing , shipping, talking to folks that come into the museum display -- the list is very long.  The assistant curators have been a really big help and I want to give them credit and have you meet them. David Larsen - the Computer Collector  Send a Tweet'CLICK' hashtag #KK4WW if you enjoy the blog or have a comment
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   Amber Ingram in her own words as assistant curator.

Three years ago I helped begin the inventory journey to produce a Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum. My jobs have consisted of taking detailed inventory of computers, calculators, radios and such of historical value that David has collected over a number of years and placing the items into the first established Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum, located in the Village Green. The process has been long and is still ongoing but we have made huge progress in entering the inventory into Past Perfect. Our contributions will help those working on the project in later years to know exactly what David possess. The "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" is a dream of David’s and one day the hard work put into this project will show the history and the value of the items that he has collected.
-Amber
                             Video of Amber's design work in the museum display 'CLICK'.
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Rina Van Blerk on the left and Amber Ingram working on computer collection data files. Rina, Amber and Nate did special work cleaning, taking photos & inventorying about 500 calculators - this was in addition to all the normal curator work.

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                                         Rina Van Blerk in her own words as Assistant Curator

Past Perfect Work
July 18, 2013
Over the past three years, we have been helping Mr. Dave Larsen transfer the Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum items from paper to Past Perfect, a very detailed inventory program. This summer, new inventory numbers were given to several items which lacked them - allowing the items to be placed on display in the Village Green Suite. In addition, calculators have received a majority of our attention. I am currently adding pictures to Past Perfect and updating minor details such as descriptions and conditions. I printed several reports showing the inventory contents of particular boxes. We are working hard to make this goal of a historical computer museum a reality. The work is tedious, but necessary – and serves as valuable information in the future.
-Rina  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                         Nate Cleveland in his own words as Assistant Curator

As the newest intern working for David, my first year was spent helping with the massive project of transferring David’s collection of computers, calculators, and radios from his paper inventory to an online database, Past Perfect. This involves transcribing detailed notes about every item in David’s collection into a format that is easily accessible and allows one to search for specific items. While the process of entering the data may be a long one, it will be necessary to organize David’s collection and help display even more of it in the Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum for all technology enthusiasts to enjoy. We are making constant progress on the project and are happy to see all of our hard work become a reality.
-Nate ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I recommend hiring students as summer office assistants/interns.
Here at the LCF Group in Floyd Virginia we have employed student assistants for the past 7 years. The advantages for our group and the students are tremendous.  The students are highly motivated to work and learn skills that will help them in any full time career after graduating.  They often return each summer and become very productive members of our staff .  We like to hire students from our local high school for 1 or 2 summers and they often return 3 or 4 addition summers during college. A summer job is very hard to find in our little town and the students are pleased to have meaningful paid work and be home during school breaks. The additional skilled help allows our office the flexibility to keep a full staff while some are on summer vacation, mission trips, and  family gatherings.  The summer office assistants/interns are just great and fun to work with - keeps us all thinking younger.  Thank you for the great help.
"by David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector/Historian