The Influence of Hygroscopic Materials on the Fluctuation of Relative Humidity in Museums Located in Historical Buildings

ABSTRACT

The preservation of artefacts in museum collections is profoundly affected by fluctuations in temperature and, especially, relative humidity (RH). Since the late nineteenth century, many studies have been carried out on the best way to control hygrothermal conditions. In old buildings located in maritime temperate climate zones (such as Portugal) with strong thermal inertia, and which have low ventilation rate (relative to the volume and number of visitors), daily and seasonal hygroscopic inertia may help to assure the maintenance of RH stabilization conditions. The use of expensive active systems may be minimized through the passive behaviour of internal finishing building materials. This work presents the results of an experimental laboratory study conducted in a flow chamber to demonstrate the enormous potential of hygroscopic materials in stabilizing interior relative humidity. Based in these results and in-situ monitoring in a museum housed in a building, located in Porto, with a typical construction of the 1950s (granite masonry and reinforced concrete slabs), a numerical analysis was done to quantify the influence of hygroscopic materials in stabilizing the interior relative humidity.     

通过“参与科学探究的实践”培养“参与科学的能力”——英美自然历史博物馆“公众科学”项目的实践与启示

英美自然历史博物馆开展“公众科学”项目已有30多年的历史。通过比较英美三家自然历史博物馆开展的“公众科学”项目,分析其数据质量和公众教育方面取得的成效和问题,进而归纳出这些“公众科学”项目最大的特色和优势在于“通过‘参与科学探究的实践’培养‘参与科学的能力’”。这一成功模式以“科学探究实践”为核心理念,解决了长久以来困扰科学传播界的公众“如何参与科学”以及“如何具有参与科学的能力”的问题,也为国内自然科学类博物馆的发展提供了一个新的思路。     

自然史博物馆解读性说明文字撰写要素 ——以美国史密森尼国家自然史博物馆为例

“解读性说明文字”强调展览说明文字不仅仅是信息的呈现,更在于鼓励观众参与和增加展览的互动性,对自然史博物馆的信息传播起到了不可或缺的作用。本文通过结合美国文化遗产学家Freeman Tilden提出的六条解读原则,以及美国史密森尼国家自然史博物馆在解读性说明文字方面的成功经验,旨在分析自然史博物馆解读性说明文字撰写设计的关键要素——关联性、准确性、艺术性和互动性等。进而提炼出提升自然史博物馆解读性说明文字撰写水平的途径,为我国自然史博物馆展陈设计提供借鉴。     

数字化能给博物馆带来什么？ ——基于《地平线报告:2015博物馆版》的分析

博物馆数字化工作并非易事,需要多方面的投入和调整。为了更好地推进博物馆数字化工作,“数字化能给博物馆带来什么”是一个需要回答的基本问题。通过对《地平线报告:2015年博物馆版》进行解读,对报告中与观众体验紧密相关的几个关键词进行分析,将数字化对博物馆观众体验的影响概括为:有助于丰富观众的在线体验、有助于深化观众的交互体验、有助于增强观众的参与体验和有助于提升观众体验的社交化和个性化等几个方面。     

Domesticated Animals on Exhibit at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 1900–1928

In 1905 the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University began planning for a new domesticated animals exhibition in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder Louis Agassiz. The resulting displays of variation and heredity in poultry, pigeons, rabbits, mice, and guinea pigs proved surprisingly popular to museumgoers. Some of these specimens still exist in the museum’s storage facilities, namely a series of poultry donated by the biologist Charles B. Davenport and an elaborate set of guinea pigs from the experimental evolutionist William E. Castle. Situating these domesticated animal displays within academic and popular cultures of poultry fancying, animal breeding, and evolutionary science reveals how a nineteenth-century museum known for its ties to anti-evolutionary principles attempted to modernize its public exhibits.     

Introducing Children to Anatomy: “Getting to Know Our Bodies: The First Step Toward Becoming a Scientist”

Museums are used in every discipline to collect, classify, and present information for scientific purposes. They also serve as an effective educational medium. Since the establishment of a boutique anatomy museum at Bahçeşehir University, lectures, conferences, and seminars have been organized there over the past four years on the history of human anatomy and the human body. In order to raise awareness about the need to make anatomy accessible to kindergarteners and school-aged children, rather than exclusively to undergraduate students, activities that are suited to a wide range of ages have been developed at the museum and at the anatomy laboratory. Four different sessions were conducted, including activities such as lectures using plastic models as props, shaping organs out of playdough, anatomy puzzles, watching cartoons, and examining specimens through a microscope. Healthy and pathologic anatomies were chosen to match daily themes. Among the kindergarteners and elementary school children, no grading was done, nor was any questionnaire administered; however, a survey was administered in the 10–12 age group (N = 64). According to the students' written feedback, 93.75% said they “are happy with microscope activities” while 84.37% said they “had so much fun” participating in the playdough activities. However, 18.75% criticized the activities, saying they “could have been longer.” In conclusion, it is believed that these “getting to know our bodies” activities that were hosted in the anatomy museum, including conferences, workshops, material preparation, and instructional movies, may play an important role in the development of a healthy society.     

科技馆运营管理系统的探索——以广东科学中心运营管理为例

通过构建一套既能充分体现服务公众的公益性要求,实现良好的社会效益,又能增强自身的功能,拓展多方面的资金来源的运营管理系统,从而寻求一条促进科技馆可持续发展的路径。我们探讨广东科学中心的运营管理系统,就是为了探讨市场经济条件下大型公共设施运行管理的规律,为我国建立公共设施运营管理理论体系做出贡献。     

Mondrian as kitchen tiles? Artistic and cultural conceptions of art museum visitors in Belgium

This article investigates the ways in which art museums' visitors define their relationships to art and culture, and how this affects their perceptions of art museums. Existing approaches have traditionally attempted to define the meaning of art museums on the basis of the socio-economic composition of museum audiences. Using mixed methods analysis, with a particular stress on qualitative data about the audiences of the six main museums of modern and contemporary art in Belgium, I argue for the need for a more complex and comprehensive framework to understand visitors' perceptions. I show that people characterized by similar cultural tastes and practices use similar strategies to interpret their relationship to culture, art and museums (the same principles of classification, legitimation and justification). On this basis, I argue that those with a similar cultural profile belong to the same “interpretive community” (Fish, 1980; Hooper-Greenhill, 2000).