The history of museum collections is also the history of the management of information about these collections. Today, increased access to large amounts of robust collections data requires that information be curated so that is useful for communities and individuals who wish to access it. This has caused scholars and communities to question modes of ordering that do not necessarily map onto their own local and personal understandings of the world. In light of the major pragmatic and intellectual affordances stimulated by information technologies, the inner workings of these systems are often made invisible and act as infrastructures rather than singular or simple tools. By providing a historical account of how information about anthropological museum collections was computerized in the 1970s at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), I consider the museum catalogue as a socio-technical information infrastructure. From that perspective, I argue that the knowledge produced by modes of inscription such as catalogues is generated by relationships of individuals and technologies. A detailed and critical history of catalogues must take into account these historical socio-technical infrastructures.

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物质文化目录的计算机化：史密森学会人类学系的对象和基础设施

博物馆藏品的历史也是这些藏品信息管理的历史。今天，增加对大量可靠馆藏数据的访问需要对信息进行整理，以便对希望访问它的社区和个人有用。这导致学者和社区质疑不一定映射到他们自己的本地和个人对世界的理解的排序模式。鉴于信息技术激发了主要的实用和智力可供性，这些系统的内部运作通常被隐藏起来，充当基础设施，而不是单一或简单的工具。通过提供关于 1970 年代史密森学会如何将人类学博物馆藏品的信息计算机化的历史记录” s 国家自然历史博物馆 (NMNH)，我认为博物馆目录是一种社会技术信息基础设施。从这个角度来看，我认为由目录等铭文模式产生的知识是由个人和技术的关系产生的。目录的详细和关键历史必须考虑到这些历史社会技术基础设施。