This issue of the Journal collects articles under the theme of ‘communications’. Two articles examine the making of the Science Museum’s permanent new communications gallery – Information Age – looking at experiments in participation and the challenges of display. Historical articles investigate the role of non-users in the development of telecommunications technologies and at the historical antecedents of modern citizen science. Others articles explore communication with audiences through a study of visitor expectations of the role of museums in science policy, and describe an effort to communicate with musicians and listeners from a bygone age of acoustic recording through a unique recording re-enactment.
In this issue:
Editorial
Museums as brokers of participation: how visitors view the emerging role of European science centres and museums in policy
Troublesome telephony: how users and non-users shaped the development of early British exchange telephony
The Art and Science of Acoustic Recording: Re-enacting Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s landmark 1913 recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
Information age? The challenges of displaying information and communication technologies
Embedding plurality: exploring participatory practice in the development of a new permanent gallery
Old weather: citizen scientists in the 19th and 21st centuries
Review: Cabinet of Curiosities: How disability was kept in a box
