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A symposium on histories of use and tacit skills
The histories of use of the objects in museum collections, and the unrecorded skills of their operation, have posed pressing research questions for museum people and university scholars alike. This symposium drew together different perspectives on this emerging area of study.
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Collecting the personal: stories of domestic energy and everyday life at the National Museum of Scotland
The Energise gallery at the National Museum of Scotland explores the sources, generation, distribution and use of energy and questions how science and technology transform how we power our lives. This article details three objects around which a focus on personal stories was adopted.
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Contexts for photography collections at the National Media Museum
In 2016 the National Media Museum transferred parts of its photographic collections to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This article examines the reactions to this decision to understand what it can tell us about public perceptions of the role of museums, and places the transfer in the wider contexts of sustainable collecting practices, economic pressures and local circumstances.
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Embedding plurality: exploring participatory practice in the development of a new permanent gallery
This paper contributes to a critical understanding of current language and discourses of participatory and co-creative practices, through a case study of a large, permanent exhibition development – the Science Museum's Information Age gallery – which opened in 2014.
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Functionless
Displays of instruments in science museums are closer to those of decorative arts artefacts than to the presentation of real functional and practical objects. This article offers a critique and suggests a path forward to go beyond functionless objects.
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Getting to grips with energy: fuel, materiality and daily life
Editorial
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Information age? The challenges of displaying information and communication technologies
This article explores the challenges of displaying the history of information and communications in a museum environment, based on Information Age, the Science Museum’s new permanent gallery.
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Museums theme – Adventures in Museology: category building over a century, and the context for experiments in reinvigorating the Science Museum at the turn of the twenty-first century
Acting as an introduction to articles in this issue on a museums theme, this paper discusses the long-term history of science museums and the conjuncture of the late twentieth century which precipitated innovations in various science museums described in the collection.
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Museums theme – Beyond the Black Box: reflections on building a history of chemistry museum
An examination of the development of a history of chemistry museum from the perspective of the curatorial team, including the stumbling points, challenges and successes. The article looks at critical elements in exhibition development including audience and artefact selection.
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Museums theme – making Split + Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine
The author outlines the development and intellectual underpinnings of the Dibner Award-winning exhibition Split + Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine (Medical Museion, 2009). Deep connections between biotechnologies, technologies of the self, and the technology that is an exhibition are examined.