Scientific instruments on display / / edited by Silke Ackermann, Richard L. Kremer, Mara Miniati.

• Superior document: Scientific instruments and collections ; Volume 4
• TeilnehmendeR: Ackermann, Silke,; Kremer, Richard L.; Miniati, Mara,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands : : Brill,, 2014.; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: History of science and medicine library. Scientific instruments and collections ; Volume 4.; History of science and medicine library ; Volume 46.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (265 p.)
• Notes: Includes index.

During their active lives, scientific instruments generally inhabit the laboratory, observatory, classroom or the field. But instruments have also lived in a wider set of venues, as objects on display. As such, they acquire new levels of meaning; their cultural functions expand. This book offers selected studies of instruments on display in museums, national fairs, universal exhibitions, patent offices, book frontispieces, theatrical stages, movie sets, and on-line collections. The authors argue that these displays, as they have changed with time, reflect changing social attitudes towards the objects themselves and toward science and its heritage. By bringing display to the center of analysis, the collection offers a new and ambitious framework for the study of scientific instruments and the material culture of science. Contributors are: Amy Ackerberg-Hastings, Silke Ackermann, Marco Beretta, Laurence Bobis, Alison Boyle, Fausto Casi, Ileana Chinnici, Suzanne Débarbat, Richard Dunn, Inga Elmqvist-Söderlund, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Peggy A. Kidwell, Richard Kremer, Mara Miniati, Richard A. Paselk, Donata Randazzo, Steven Turner.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- 1 Andrea Corsini and the Creation of the Museum of the History of Science in Florence (1930–1961) / Marco Beretta -- 2 “Not for their Beauty”: Instruments and Narratives at the Science Museum, London / Alison Boyle -- 3 “More Artistic than Scientific”: Exhibiting Instruments as Decorative Arts in the Victoria and Albert Museum / Richard Dunn -- 4 “Of Sufficient Interest . . ., but not of Such Value . . .”: 260 Years of Displaying Scientific Instruments in the British Museum / Silke Ackermann -- 5 Instruments on Display at the Paris Observatory / Laurence Bobis and Suzanne Débarbat -- 6 Looking at Scientific Instruments on Display at the United States Centennial Exhibition of 1876 / Richard L. Kremer -- 7 Permanent Demonstrations: The Science Teaching Museum at the University of Chicago / Steven C. Turner -- 8 The Display of Twentieth-Century Instruments at Humboldt State University / Richard A. Paselk -- 9 Slide Rules on Display in the United States, 1840–2010 / Peggy Aldrich Kidwell and Amy Ackerberg-Hastings -- 10 “Exceedingly Ridiculous”: Telescopes on Display on the Seventeenth-Century Stage / Ingrid Jendrzejewski -- 11 Instruments on Movie Sets: A Case Study / Ileana Chinnici , Donatella Randazzo and Fausto Casi -- 12 Display of Instruments on Seventeenth-Century Astronomical Frontispieces / Inga Elmqvist Söderlund -- Index.