Thomas Söderqvist

Many museums struggle with how to integrate Facebook (and other social media) in their collections, exhibitions and physical venues. Therefore it was interesting to read Benjamin Thompson’s report from a Eureka Live event, ‘Facebook: bad for friendship?’, held at the Wellcome Collection in London, some time ago. One of the discussion topics was whether you can have too many friends on […]

Our colleagues over at the fabulous rete list are just now busy recommending the Museum of Technology in Hemel Hempstead in northern London. It doesn’t have regular opening hours; one has to make an appointment. Writes Tony Constable: If you can manage a short trip north of London to Hemel Hempstead there is the excellent Museum of […]

We’ve just produced this simple piece of genomic jewellery — a necklace made by a gene chip in a thin silver chain (see larger image below). This particular gene chip (BeadChip) is produced by the San Diego-based company Illumina, which develops and manufactures platforms for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function for the rapidly growing sequencing, genotyping and gene expression markets. […]

Just a reminder of the Artefacts meeting on ‘Conceptualizing, Collecting and Presenting Recent Science and Technology’, 25-27 September, 2011, in the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden. The central question is what intellectual and practical approaches should be developed to document, preserve and present the history of recent science and technology? Deadline for proposals is 1 July — read more here.

“While much has been written on the history of psychiatry, remarkably little has been written about psychiatric collections or curating”, says the back-cover of Exhibiting Madness in Museums: Remembering Psychiatry Through Collection and Display, edited by Catharine Coleborne and Dolly MacKinnon. A first sketch to a comparative history of collections of psychiatric objects, the volume, which will be published […]

In small ethnically homogenous countries like Denmark, Poland and Finland, there is a thick aura of nationalism around museums. For that reason alone, the planned conference on ‘Transnational History of Museums’, 17-18 February 2012 seems like a relief. Organised by the Institut für Kunstwissenschaft und Historische Urbanistik at TU-Berlin, the aim of the conference is to go […]

A couple of years ago, Camilla Mordhorst and I were playing with the idea that the museum was like a blog. What would Medical Museion be like of it was modelled on Biomedicine on Display? I thought about our discussions when I read Mia Ridge’s report from the recent Digital Communication and Heritage meeting at Nordiska Museet in […]

Thing afficionados still have a week left to consider an abstract for the conference ‘Things in culture, culture in things’, to be held at the University of Tartu, Estonia, 20-22 October, 2011 — three days about things in culture, cultures in things “and lest we forget, all that stuff in between”. The call for papers claims that “since the […]

Two weeks ago, friends and colleagues alerted me to Horace Freeland Judson’s recent death. I was amazed to hear he had already reached the age of 80. But then again, 20 years have gone since we first met in 1991-92. Horace had received a major grant from the Mellon Foundation to write a history of immunology, and advertised for postdocs […]

På danske ICOMs årsmøde i morgen, mandag den 23. maj skal man diskutere internationalisering i den danske museumsverden — noget som den siddende museumsudredning for øvrigt har lagt en hel del vægt på. Danske ICOMs bestyrelse mener at den danske museumsverden allerede er kommet et godt stykke på vej med henblik på internationalisering og fremhæver i den forbindelse den kendsgerning at tre danske museumsansatte i […]

Let me take this opportunity to present another new member of staff — assistant professor Adam Bencard: I started as assistent professor in science communication here at Medical Museion in November 2010. I have two major tasks: I’m doing research in experimental science communication and I make exhibitions. I’m particularly interested in material objects and the philosophical aspects […]

I’m proud to present our new staff member, Daniel Noesgaard, who will work with biomedical science communication on the web, especially through social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc., and maybe especially the many forthcoming cetera). Daniel’s position is financed by the science communication grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation through the new NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research (which I will tell more […]