TY - JOUR TI - Festschrift: of mice and myths: challenges and opportunities of capturing contemporary science in museums AU -Alison Boyle PY - 2020 VL - IS - Spring 2020 KW - collections KW - Contemporary artefact KW - contemporary collection KW - science and technology museums AB - N1 - John Durant, “Draft Text for ‘Treasures of the Science Museum’” (October 23, 1991), T/1989-437, ScM. This appeared in edited form as an entry in Neil Cossons, Andrew Nahum and Peter Turvey (eds), Making of the Modern World: Milestones of Science and Technology (Murray: London, 1997). N1 - The time period covered by ‘contemporary’ varies between institutions according to the nature of their collections. Current literature on recent material heritage of science and technology tends to cover the broad period post-Second World War, as equipment may remain in use for decades before becoming available for collections. See, for example, Marta C Lourenço and Lydia Wilson, 'Scientific Heritage: Reflections on Its Nature and New Approaches to Preservation, Study and Access', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44, no. 4 (1 December 2013): 744–53; Alison Boyle and Johannes-Geert Hagmann (eds), Challenging Collections: Approaches to the Heritage of Recent Science and Technology, Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology, Volume 11 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017); Samuel J M M Alberti et al, 'Collecting Contemporary Science, Technology and Medicine', Museum Management and Curatorship 33, no. 5 (July 22, 2018): 1–26. For targeted contemporary collecting projects the Science Museum is currently adopting a practical working definition of ‘made or become noteworthy in the last ten years’, but also continues to collect material from the last decades of the twentieth century. N1 - See for example Alison Boyle and Johannes-Geert Hagmann (eds), 'Introduction', in Challenging Collections: Approaches to the Heritage of Recent Science and Technology, Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology, Volume 11 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017), vi–xi; essays and discussions in Science Museum, Museum Collecting Policies in Modern Science and Technology: Proceedings of a Seminar Held at the Science Museum, London, 3 November 1988 (London: Science Museum, 1991). N1 - See for example David N Livingstone, Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2010); Simon Werrett, Thrifty Science: Making the Most of Materials in the History of Experiment (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2019). N1 - For overviews of the growth of social history collecting and the science centre approach from around the 1960s, see respectively Owain Rhys, Contemporary Collecting: Theory and Practice (Edinburgh: MuseumsEtc, 2014) and Karen A Rader, 'Hands-On Science Centers as Anti-Collections? The Origins and Implications Of the Exploratorium Exhibits Model', in Challenging Collections: Approaches to Recent Scientific and Technological Heritage, editors Alison Boyle and Johannes-Geert Hagmann (Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017), 198–215. For more on the Science Museum's mixed economy of social-historically-informed curatorship and science communication approaches, see Timothy Boon, 'Parallax Error? A Participant’s Account of the Science Museum, c.1980-2000', in Science for the Nation: Perspectives on the History of the Science Museum, editor Peter J T Morris (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 111–35. N1 - For examples of practice, and ethical considerations, see 'How Are Museums Collecting during Coronavirus Lockdown? | Museums Association', accessed 13 May 2020, https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news-analysis/03042020-how-are-museums-collecting-covid-19; 'Collecting COVID-19', Science Museum Group, accessed 13 May 2020, https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/project/collecting-covid-19/. N1 - For example Katy Bunning et al, 'Embedding Plurality: Exploring Participatory Practice in the Development of a New Permanent Gallery', Science Museum Group Journal, no. 3 (5 May 2015), https://doi.org/10.15180/150305; Richard Sandell, Jocelyn Dodd and Ceri Jones, 'Trading Zones: Collaborative Ventures in Disability History', in Oxford Handbook of Public History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 87–104; Anna Adamek, 'A Snapshot of Canadian Kitchens: Collecting Contemporary Technologies as Historical Evidence for Future Research', in Challenging Collections: Approaches to Recent Scientific and Technological Heritage, editors Alison Boyle and Johannes-Geert Hagmann, Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017), 134–49. N1 - Here, for example, is ours: Science Museum Group, 'Collecting Policy Statements October 2016', 2016, https://group.sciencemuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/smg-collecting-policy-updated-0918.pdf PB - The Science Museum Group SN - 2054-5770 LA - eng DO - 10.15180/201308 UR - https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/of-mice-and-myths/ T2 - Science Museum Group Journal