Museum of Computing seeks new home

A museum dedicated to the history of computing is looking for a new home, with its collection having gone into storage.

Staff at the Museum of Computing in Swindon are hopeful of finding a new site after being given office space to store the thousands of exhibits for 18 months.

Museum curator Simon Webb described having to lock away the exhibits — which have attracted around 5,000 people annually and taken five years to amass — as "tragic".

The collection includes more than 2,000 hardware exhibits and 1,500 books, manuals and specialist magazines. The exhibits run from mechanical computers and slide rules to the first PCs and modern games consoles.

Webb told ZDNet.co.uk sister site silicon.com he was reasonably optimistic that the museum would find a new home in Swindon later this year. He added that he had offers from outside the town, but the museum would only leave Swindon as a last resort.

The museum had to leave its base at the University of Bath Oakdale campus at the end of June, because the university outpost is shutting in July. Staff were unable to secure a new venue before the deadline for moving out expired.

Webb said: "We have this fantastic collection and nowhere to put it."

"It is tragic that it should be in storage; it should be out there so people can see how computing has developed over the past 40 years. I am fairly confident and am hoping we will get a firm commitment for a new home in Swindon in a few weeks," said Webb.

He said he wanted to keep the museum in Swindon as it relies on local volunteers, and it is important to celebrate the town's long-standing technology pedigree that continues to this day, with both Intel and Motorola having local offices.

The exhibition needs to have a long-term lease on premises to be granted official museum accreditation.