I got an Apple II computer sometime in the late 1970’s and the moment that sticks in my mind most graphically was the first time I "lost" a document. Where did it go? I had committed my thoughts to text, committed the text to the computer, and the computer had lost the information. Where did it go? It was not in the memory of the computer. It was not on the printer. It was not on the floppy disk. Where was it? It had to be somewhere — a somewhere that I did not understand. A dark hole in the universe where no human was allowed to go? A place where ideas lived not unlike the brain, but not at all like the brain. I knew where my brain was — I did not know where my text was. Where was it? This question has never been answered in more than twenty years.

Having had some experiences with the Smithsonian over the past fifteen years I am very proud and excited to be in the Archive. My first experience of the Smithsonian was of course as a child. Although I did not visit the Smithsonian until I was an adult, I knew it as the place where all of American history lived. Whenever the subject arose of wondering where something was — Lincoln’s top hat, the first airplane, the first flag — the answer was always "The Smithsonian". I had always imagined it as a vast, single museum with thousands and thousands of rooms. To visit the Smithsonian was to go anywhere in time and find a thing that had meaning — it was the home of wondering and finding out.

I worked with the National Museum of Natural History as a Research Associate from MIT in the mid 1980’s. We wanted to make a digital multimedia application for education that used the native American collections at the Museum. Our background motive was that we might digitize the material and help in the repatriation of the actual objects to the Indians. This seemed like a good thing to use digital technology for — to extract an image and contextual information from objects that had been taken out of their context — had had their meaning removed by being "collected". It would be a solution to a cultural dilemna at the heart of American history: Using technology to both understand another culture and to allow that culture to keep its own objects.

But I soon discovered that the objects were not "things" as we understand them in our culture. They were actually more like what we understand to be machines. They were things that actually performed — they had meaning by being imbued with energy — an active spirit — a spirit that did work. Looking at those objects in the attic of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian I realized that no one had yet told the story of American culture — no one had begun to understand the Indian values of courage, wisdom, generousity, and respect (I learned these from a Lakota Souix named John Haas) and how they mapped to my culture’s values of individualism, knowledge, wealth, and freedom. The story is still yet to be told — but if you’re wondering about it — start with a visit to the Smithsonian.