This highly informative book reflects changes in both the historiographic and practical aspects of instrument studies. The latter has to do with sources: instrument studies has always been characterized by an admirable diligence, from the early trawling through texts of E.G.R. Taylor, to the investigation of guild records by Joyce Brown, the focus on advertising and ephemera of David Bryden, the close examination of instruments by Gerard Turner, and the monumental achievement of the Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851-the product of longterm data-gathering by Turner, Michael Crawforth and Gloria Clifton. These foundations are now being built upon with the mass of information newly and easily available through online sources. As the editors note in their preface, the studies in How Scientific Instruments Have Changed Hands draw on digital archives of trade literature, government records, maps and newspapers, as well as online collections databases. Another source made extensive use of here is so-called 'grey literature': trade catalogues, flyers, pamphlets and other ephemera. In many ways this is the crucial resource for study of the trade, and yet it is consistently accorded second, third or no place at all in museum and library collections.
展开▼
