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Unique Claims To Fame
American Computer & Robotics Museum
Bozeman, Mont. By RAY BALOGH | The Municipal
One can often be fooled by first impressions.
ABOVE: Barbara Keremedjiev co-founded the museum with her husband, George, who passed away in November 2018. (Photo provided by Rachel Leathe, Bozeman Daily Chronicle) TOP PHOTO: The unpretentious facade of the American Computer & Robotics Museum belies the wonderland of fascinating exhibits, and their attendant stories, within its walls. (EQRoy/Shutterstock.com)
14 THE MUNICIPAL | JUNE 2021
But making that mistake with the American Computer & Robotics Museum in Bozeman, Mont., will deny one the opportunity to experience a place visitors have hailed as “absolutely amazing,” “small but fascinating,” “little gem of a museum” and, according to Dr. Edward O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, “inch for inch, the best museum in the world.” The nondescript exterior and unassuming welcome sign of the shared suite location downtown might lead visitors to “expect a sterile display of computers on shelves like you might see inside Staples,” said Eleanor Barker, the museum’s enthusiastic executive director. “But what always surprises them is the range of fascinating stories we’re telling through our artifacts.” The museum, founded in May 1990 by “visionary collector” George Keremedjiev, “is the oldest continually operating museum of its kind in the world,” according to its website, www.acrmuseum.org. Keremedjiev passed away in November 2018, and Barker sees her challenge as “turning a labor of love run by George and his family into an institution that has prominence nationally. Only four or five
