Forty Years of Scientific Instrument Studies (Hardcover)

Hardcover. Since 1981, the Scientific Instrument Commission has provided a forum for annual international discussion of topics close to the hearts of those caring for and researching historic scientific instruments. During these years, increasing professionalisation of curatorship and deepened engagement by historians have led to important changes in these roles.This volume is a cornucopia illustrating how instrument studies have changed and flourished over the past forty years. Four chapters review the work of the Scientific Instrument Commission by decade. The remaining chapters consider the historiography of instrument studies, the cataloguing of collections, historic instruments in exhibitions and educational settings, national trends, and the impact of new media. This book includes twenty smaller, in-depth Fingerposts, or colourfully illustrated vignettes, presenting significant artefacts selected to span the spread of historical instrumentation through time and geography. They demonstrate the variety of historical questions and thematic analyses that can be explored through close inspection of particular scientific instruments.Contributors are R.G.W. Anderson, Sara J. Schechner, Richard L. Kremer, David Pantalony, Boris Jardine, A.D. Morrison-Low, Giorgio Strano, Jean-Francois Gauvin, Sofia Talas, Pedro Raposo, and Floor Koeleman. This volume illustrates how scientific instrument studies have flourished over the past forty years, with chapters devoted to decades, historiography, cataloguing, exhibitions, education, national trends, and new media. Twenty vignettes illustrate historical questions addressed by close inspection of significant artefacts. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…