script | Museum of HSTM

Please could everyone post their thoughts on their chosen object as soon as possible please? I’m going to try and draft an introductory text panel (150words) sometime this week, and it would be really helpful to be able to refer to the objects as much as possible.

Michael suggested I did a minute film introducing the museum – using Dominic’s word count, for what might constitute a minute’s worth of film, this is what I’ve come up with. Please let me know what you think. Michael, when would be a good time to do this?

‘My name is Dr Emily Winterburn and I am the curator at the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Museum at the University of Leeds. We are a new museum, based in the Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science and our collections are formed mainly out of old teaching collections – collections historically used to teach various subjects at the University and also collections used to teach school children science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The latter came to us out of the University’s former history of education museum collections.

We’re a multi-site museum which means where possible we try to display objects in the locations in which they were once used, and to work with the departments that in many cases retain ownership of those objects.

The 1 minute films that follow give a taste of what we consider to be some of our best objects. Some are unique, some are quirky and others we think just have interesting stories to tell. We hope you will enjoy them.’

What do you think?

UPDATE: You can view the finished 1 minute video introduction on our Youtube channel here.

Hello, I thought I would upload my pictures alongside a draft of the script I am writing for the video. I will then expand on this for the display description, so comments on either aspect (video/display description) will be appreciated. (Any comments regarding the Coco de Mer in the background will not be considered irrelevant)

“Leeds was amongst the first universities in Britain to recognise that investigation of plants could go well beyond taxonomic classification. In 1907 it became one of a very few universities to offer a chair of Botany, a position which has since been held by many illustrious names. The first was Vernon Herbert Blackman who is now most widely remembered for his investigation of plant development, particularly how one plant can fertilise another and produce offspring. For this kind of research seeds are themselves important for producing the experiment subjects. However I have principally chosen this item for display in the museum because a well stocked seed collection was really the heart of any Botanical department. Here we see only a portion of a collection that would have run to hundreds of species and varieties, some common others very rare. The vast number of ways in which this collection can be put to work is staggering. Not only can these seeds be scrutinised for physiological and anatomical purposes, but they can form the basis of investigations into inheritance, fertilisation, classification and a whole host of other important biological questions. What is perhaps most interesting however is that there is every chance that one or two of these specimens could still be grown today. Some seeds have managed to germinate after decades or even centuries in storage. It makes you wonder what valuable genetic material might be hidden inside.”

Right then, what do you think? As it stands it takes me just over a minute to say this, going at a slower than normal rate. Have I crowbarred in the ‘hidden’ theme a little too brutally? Also, are we still on for filming these on the 18th?

UPDATE: You can view the finished video on the seed collection at the University of Leeds on our Youtube channel here.