Spring 2025

In the Spring 2025 issue of the Science Museum Group Journal, we step into our second decade of publication with an exciting suite of articles and reviews, with a special emphasis on research that considers future developments in museum practices. This issue features a keynote paper presented by Colin Jones at the conference accompanying the recent Versailles: Science and Splendour exhibition, in which he reflects on the relationship between the French court and scientific development in the eighteenth century; Christina Buckingham considers an innovative approach to audience research for early gallery development that considers the relationship between science capital and intergenerational learning; Naomi Haywood posits a new approach to childhood science engagement in object-rich spaces with an emphasis on observation, movement, and wondering; while Lydia Ackrell and Emily Rees Koerner reflect on their experience developing the Open Access research repository for the Science Museum, and consider the future of similar projects.  These are accompanied by book reviews of Harriet Atkinson’s Showing Resistance: Propaganda and Modernist exhibitions in Britain, 1933-53, and Robert Bud’s Applied Science: Knowledge, Modernity, and Britain's Public Realm, and an exhibition review of the British Library exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. The issue is rounded off with an obituary reflecting on the life and achievements of Brian Bowers, Science Museum Curator and Senior Research Fellow (1938-2024). This issue takes advantage of the recent digital updates with explorable images, smoother video integration, and more.