A Vision for the History of Science Museum

[Updated 21/12/19 with a reference under 'Validation' to Einstein's Blackboard,
23/12 added a note about the Steampunk exhibition,
27/12 added references to work of Stafford Beer and the Viable Systems Model
14/1/20 added a photo of IBM Q and a paragraph on a VR time machine, 
9/2/20 inserted a paragraph on how to be small - with thanks to Prof. Jim Bennett,
17/4/20 added a brief mention of Covid-19 to illustrate 'history in the making'
plus a few other minor changes.
15/7/21 added material contributions as part of History in the Making]


Apart from two years in Doha, I’ve been working at the History of Science Museum in Oxford since 2009.  With the prospect of its centenary in 2024,  I have been nurturing some thoughts about what it might become.  They’re just my personal views, not necessarily those of the Museum or the University.  (To put this in perspective, my job title is Digital Projects Officer - I'm not a board member, senior manager, curator or collections specialist.)

One of the main challenges is to properly accommodate such a wide range of scientific instruments, whose breadth should be readily apparent in the collection areas.   I favour larger premises and a few years ago pondered the conversion of the Osney Power Station, whose generous space and impressive architecture seemed to offer stunning possibilities - of bringing together the history of science, the latest developments in science and innovation, and community engagement, apprenticeships and so on.  Furthermore, the building itself had played an important role as the Southwell Laboratory, used by the Department of Engineering Science.  It even had a wind tunnel.  However, with the future of that building now determined, how might we accommodate such elements in the existing Grade I listed building on Broad Street?

Themes

Currently, many museums are working on themes, inspired by the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, which was elected European Museum of the Year 2019.   Our collections are as broad, but our space is less, so we need fewer themes whose titles are more abstract, which we might call 'meta themes'.   Abstract terminology, if meaningful and used well, can be immediately intriguing and prompt interest and enquiry, as with notions of architecture at the University Museum, Tokyo.

Accordingly, I would like to propose three new themes, though most of my deliberations have been only on the first:

1. 'History in the Making':  the main thrust of this is to keep in touch with current research and development, especially across the University's science departments.  An obvious example is Covid-19, the deadly novel coronavirus strain that has brought much of the world into lockdown. At Oxford there are hundreds of people involved in specialist endeavours to understand and treat the virus.  Whilst the media are focused on the immediate medical emergency, still many others are looking at the wider impact on society, which surely benefits from a historical perspective.
   
   So imagine a circulatory system continually supplying information on the latest research, coming together at the Museum, and being distilled for public consumption, assisted by AI, and then feeding responses back to the respective departments.   It was Rupesh Srivastava at NQIT whom I first heard use this phrase, when he suggested bringing into focus current research, whose discoveries are already entering history books - in his case relating to quantum computing.
   
   

   

   IBM Q quantum computer on display at Oxford University's Beecroft
   building (Department of Physics) reception area, June 2018

    
   The title is open to many interpretations, allowing us to use any number of scholarly methods, such as Philosophy of Science, to analyse the conditions and processes that support ingenuity and innovation, whilst also looking at the implications for society as a whole.  Also 'making' is a very relevant word because we are a museum of scientific instruments, all of which have makers and a process of production, along with various other provenance.  It should appeal especially to loyal members of the Rete mailing list.
   
   Furthermore, the Museum's collections can benefit directly in terms of the material culture.  The  processes that feed information about research can include inventory details – not just the objects used in the experiments, but also their functions, the processes in which they are involved and their environmental properties, including indications of hazards.  An ontology can be developed and refined on an ongoing basis.  This will enable the Museum and other interested parties to see at a glance what departments and teams are engaged in, the materials they are using, the processes planned and underway.  Fresh insights may be gained in high-level considerations of the processes intrinsic to scientific research. 
   
   Stock control will be incorporated into the system (think about order fulfilment in online shopping), so we know the shelf life of equipment, when it is due to be replaced and the on-site movements.   This will have many practical benefits.  As breakthroughs are made, the Museum will already know what’s involved and be able to anticipate what equipment and samples will be reaching end of life and thus be in a position to enquire about possible accessions.  There will be no need to be reactive and make hasty decisions if, for example, recycling people phone up and say, “We’ve got this… are you interested?”
   
   This theme will also be great for launch day as it will itself mark history in the making.  It should also be chosen on a date of astronomical significance.  How about Wednesday 20 March 2024, the spring equinox, an expression of being in balance?
   
   Location: the entrance to the Museum, currently the Entrance Gallery on the first floor, as it's the nearest contact to the outside world.  Many metaphors apply such as 'keeping in touch’, encountering the surface and then as you move into the building, you go back in time and deeper into the foundations of the subject matter.  It would sit well with the shop, which is usually near the entrance, offering a bright welcome and a fond farewell.   (In the process of thinking afresh, we can also become more mindful of why things are laid out the way they are.)
 
2. 'Voyages of Discovery: Inner and Outer Worlds': Again, laden with multiple meanings, this covers scientific 'voyages' as in theories, methods, experiments, etc., and the physical voyages that used these instruments.  'Inner and outer' allows equipment to range from microscopes to telescopes.  Going beyond equipment, there are more symbolic meanings concerned with other kinds of investigations, such as what it means to be human and the nature of ‘science’ across history and cultures (the inner voyage into mind, soul, etc.).
   
   In this connection, we may explore the popular theme of science and religion.  Established religions are already being engaged in dialogue through the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, but many people regard themselves as spiritual and do not relate to organised religion.  They may be interested in psychic phenomena, angels, telepathy, near-death experiences, and so on.  The Museum does have some relevant objects, so I feel there is a need to learn from another organisation, whose roots lie in the work of Sir Alister Hardy, who had a distinguished career as a marine biologist.  However, he also had a deep interest in spiritual phenomena, establishing the Religious Experience Research Unit, which built up a database of reports from individuals who had these kinds of experiences.  It's now the Alister Hardy Trust and Religious Experience Research Centre, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.
   
   In a short biography of Sir Alister for issue 67 of De Numine, its journal, Ben Korgen writes that after his retirement that:
   
   “If Hardy had been less well known, his colleagues might have brushed this off as just another hobby or as a topic for casual conversation.  Hardy was different.  He was a world renowned scientist, he had been knighted, and as the Linacre Professor of Zoology at Oxford, had become an influential spokesman for the life sciences.”
   
   Coincidentally, the Director of the Museum is a Fellow of Linacre College.  Why not develop the Linacre connection further?
   
   Location: Basement Gallery, the bowels of the museum - plumbing the innermost depths!
    
3. 'Knowledge as Art': Aesthetics, works of beauty using precise methods, fine materials, embellished and sublime, often with reverence to the divine.  A bridge between science and art that's not confined to any one particular period (e.g. medieval astrolabes or Renaissance globes), but is evident throughout history.  Arguably the most successful exhibition we’ve ever had in engaging and enthusing the public was inspired by the Victorians: Steampunk saw people queueing around the block.
   
   This theme may be developed with special attention to the physical-digital spaces.
   
   Location: Top Gallery, the lightest and airiest space, as befits celestial aspirations.
    
4. ‘Experimental zone’: a fundamentally immersive digital environment in which to explore our digital collections or recreate scientific experiments, incorporating enhanced 3D and kinaesthetic experiences.  Not a core theme, it serves to support the others individually and as a whole. 
   
   Although I'm not a big fan of virtual reality (VR), it might be a fitting place to install a VR time machine in which one takes a seat and, as in H.G. Wells' novel, play the part of a Time Traveller, particularly as this space presently houses Cyril Beeson's horological collection.  As one turns back the clock, scenes unfold gradually, giving witness to the Museum's remarkably varied history over the centuries: its spaces - as laboratory, teaching space, etc. - and its protagonists, such as Elias Ashmole, the founder, its scientists, curators and other occupants.  Plenty of scope for interaction.
   
   Location: Beeson Room

Validation

For the themes to be well-grounded, an audit of the collections is needed to ascertain relative strengths and weaknesses – there may be some surprises!

Consistent with our primary responsibility of preservation, once we’ve come up with a set of themes, we may test their coverage by seeing if it accommodates each of our past exhibitions and displays.  It should in particular encompass objects featured in the audio guide.  So, for example, we may test against the most popular of these, which is consistently (according to Front of House) Einstein's Blackboard, and we see that it's readily satisfied by applying 'Voyages of Discovery: Inner and Outer Worlds' - the mathematical equations represent the expansion of the universe, measuring both density and distance.

The blackboard is arguably our 'unique selling point' (USP).  It was even a catalyst for its own exhibition.

Development of the Themes and Sustainability

Themes must also be sustainable - not only financially, but also in terms of being properly embedded in the University's wider functioning. So the science departments should be involved, especially in co-creating 'History in the Making'.  Taking the cue from the Boerhaave, Museum staff can visit each department and invite their views on what they'd like to see at the Museum, how they may be assisted in reaching various audiences, the kinds of programmes that might be done together.

Having conversed with the science departments, other subject disciplines can be brought in, shaped overall by the discipline of 'history of science' and the set of values (to be agreed) - I'm certainly not a specialist in this field!   To help with manageability, a special project could be set up to devise new kinds of processes, working towards a kind of evolutionary cycle such that any new initiative will be seamlessly incorporated with supporting materials, ready for further analysis so as to enhance our existing state of understanding.

This leads to broader organisational considerations and arguably the greatest challenge: long-term economic viability.  So it’s perhaps here where we might expect the most radical transformation.  In that spirit, I suggest that ideas of circulation and cycles should be likened to a responsive living organism and the inter-relatedness of its organs.  It prompts me to recall a conversation with the late Alfred Crabtree, FIProdE, an engineer and management consultant, who introduced me to the field of management cybernetics.  He lent me his copy of Stafford Beer’s Brain of the Firm, a seminal work that proposes the Viable Systems Model for organisational design, with the ability to continually adapt to environments they cannot fully control.

There’s a nice explanation provided by Metaphorum, an open society that seeks to further these ideas.  We can see that the model consists of a number of inter-operating subsystems that exhibit a set of characteristics vital for sustainability.  According to this model, the operational subsystem comprises largely autonomous operational units, which applied to our scenario of ‘history in the making’ would include what we might call ‘input streams’ from each science department providing resources.   HSM management would foster the ethos, coordinate and ensure harmony between the respective components: one of the subsystems is in fact devoted to ensuring working together in symbiotic relationships, internally and externally.

There is also emphasis on balance, which readily applies to curation, where there is a need to ensure consistency of the information and fairness in interpretation.   It also applies at higher organisational level: to be feasible the model has to be properly representative of all parties, particularly for the science departments, which may mean that the model has to scale up to the University.  (It might be interesting to use the VSM to assess the highly devolved organisational structures that have evolved over the centuries compared with the more centralised modern ones.)

In terms of the relationship with other heritage institutions, the museums sector, I am pondering thoughts offered by Professor Jim Bennett, former Director of the Museum on how to be small.  Being small places importance on being different, of doing our own thing, and risking something original (as he articulated in an interview about the Steampunk exhibition).   When other museums copy the idea we know it's been successful, but even if it doesn't work out then we can learn from our mistakes and move on.  It motivates being more distinctive and experimental, like a laboratory - with the obvious historical allusions to the building's earlier usage - that generates ideas for the sector.  I see it as a kind of museological maquette, where various creative ideas are tried out on a small scale without being onerous.  It would apply not just to the Experimental Zone, which would seem a natural fit, but to the Museum as a whole.

On a ‘revolutionary’ note, Stafford Beer was invited in the early 1970s to apply cybernetics to Chilean society, resulting in Project Cybersyn, an attempt to implant an electronic "nervous system".   Whilst that particular project was abruptly terminated, the appeal to biological systems was echoed by Bill Gates in his promotion of a ‘digital nervous system’ in the late 1990s.  This ecosystem permeated the entire Microsoft global business and evidently was immensely successful.


Whatever the vision and themes to realize that vision, their fulfilment will need clarity and considerable synergy.  It is in many ways an architectural challenge of the mind, where the designs are to support an intellectual apparatus where the development of scientific knowledge is treated as a whole, operating in a continuum across the full spectrum of human history.