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‘Everything passes, except the past’: reviewing the renovated Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA)
This article describes the author’s impressions of the new Royal Museum of Central Africa gallery. It discusses the successes and failures of the project, as well as its implications for UK museums.
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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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‘A Chamber of Noise Horrors’: sound, technology and the museum
This article analyses the 1935 Science Museum Noise Abatement exhibition in order to draw wider conclusions about technological sound and the museum and to make an argument in favour of hearing museum sound historically.
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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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Collections development in hindsight: a numerical analysis of the Science and Technology collections of National Museums Scotland since 1855
Long term and bulk patterns in the accessioning, deaccessioning and use of the Science and Technology collections of National Museums Scotland were revealed within their digital database records. This confirms the value of both collecting and disposal for collections development.
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Coming home - Bally’s miniature phrenological specimens
Close inspection of William Bally’s miniature phrenological specimens – a set of 60 small plaster busts – has led to a reappraisal of their origin and use. Made in 1832, they helped position Bally as ‘one of the best practical phrenologists in England’.
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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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Cosmonauts: Birth of an Exhibition
This paper presents the thinking behind Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age, relating it to previous Science Museum space exhibitions and to new scholarship on Russia’s space exploration. It shows also the exhibition’s dependency on curatorial and design team dialogue.
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Curating the collider: using place to engage museum visitors with particle physics
This article explores the use of reconstructed spaces and immersion at the Science Museum’s recent Collider exhibition. It sets out the challenges of engaging museum audiences with cutting-edge particle physics, describes the techniques adopted and evaluates their success.
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da Vinci Quincentenary Exhibition of 1952
This article tells the story of the Science Museum’s role in an exhibition at the Royal Academy, London, in 1952, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci, and in particular in displaying mechanical models based on Leonardo’s drawings.