Mer än bara dataspel : hur kulturarvsinstitutioner i Sverige resonerar kring dataspelsbevarande

Sammanfattning: This Master’s thesis investigates how Swedish cultural heritage institutions discuss their work and their role in the preservation of computer games as a cultural expression. The organizations investigated for this thesis is Gamevaults in Malmö, Museum of Technology in Stockholm and the audiovisual department at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm. The first question in this thesis investigates how Gamevaults, the Museum of Technology and the audiovisual department at the National Library discuss what is to be retained and preserved by the computer game culture. The second question in this thesis is investigates how they reason about how it should be preserved. The third question in this thesis investigates what factors underlies their opinions. Qualitative interviews have been used to be able to retrieve empirical information for this thesis. The interviews were carried out through personal interviews with personnel from the different institutions. The results of this thesis show that Gamevaults, the Museum of Technology and the audiovisual department at the National Library have chosen to preserve different types of information because of different interests and responsibilities. Since the various institutions maintain different types of information because of their mission and responsibility, they experience different types of problems in their work. The audiovisual department at the National Library for example, has an official responsibility to preserve computer games, which means that they must ensure that they work. Gamevaults and the Museum of Technology do not have to take this into account because they do not have any responsibility to preserve computer games. All three institutions are aware that computer game preservation is more than preserving computer games and that their work only preserves a part of the cultural manifestation. To be successful and to be able to give a broader picture, they must, according to themselves, cooperate. The view of cooperation, however, differs between institutions.