03 Spring 2015 Communications
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.
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Editorial
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Museums as brokers of participation: how visitors view the emerging role of European science centres and museums in policy
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Troublesome telephony: how users and non-users shaped the development of early British exchange telephony
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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
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Information age? The challenges of displaying information and communication technologies
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Embedding plurality: exploring participatory practice in the development of a new permanent gallery
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Old weather: citizen scientists in the 19th and 21st centuries
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Review: Cabinet of Curiosities: How disability was kept in a box
Featured content
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Old weather: citizen scientists in the 19th and 21st centuries
This article sets current citizen science in historical perspective, looking particularly at the dedicated, democratic band of British Rainfall Observers, coordinated by G. J. Symons in the 19th century, who worked outside official structures but bequeathed to us historical records which are proving invaluable to climate science.
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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
In 2014, at the Royal College of Music, an orchestra recorded on to wax discs using a horn and mechanical technology from the acoustic era of sound recording. This article examines the processes, practices and outcomes of the sessions and reflects on the musicians’ experiences.
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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.