ASTUT, the Archivio Scientifico e Tecnologico dell’Università di Torino, was founded in 1992 when some researchers realised that it was necessary to create an institution devoted to the preservation of a large heritage of instruments, testimony of the history of science. In our university, which is six centuries old, attention was paid to the documents and books but not to the “material heritage”; since the beginning of the nineties awareness rose that instruments and objects of science and technology are under risk to disappear. The choice of calling such institution archives instead of museum was due to the actual impossibility of having spaces, funds and staff enough for a permanent exhibition. Nevertheless we try to collect, restore and study all the instruments that were used by researchers in different academic disciplines. Every day we collect all kinds of instruments forsaken in the laboratories in order to preserve them as a “memory for the future”. We try to keep alive this heritage by organizing temporary exhibitions about different themes and producing audiovisual aids to help understanding how instruments actually work.
To be or not to be a museum
FAUSONE, Mara;GALLONI, Marco Rodolfo
2012-01-01
Abstract
ASTUT, the Archivio Scientifico e Tecnologico dell’Università di Torino, was founded in 1992 when some researchers realised that it was necessary to create an institution devoted to the preservation of a large heritage of instruments, testimony of the history of science. In our university, which is six centuries old, attention was paid to the documents and books but not to the “material heritage”; since the beginning of the nineties awareness rose that instruments and objects of science and technology are under risk to disappear. The choice of calling such institution archives instead of museum was due to the actual impossibility of having spaces, funds and staff enough for a permanent exhibition. Nevertheless we try to collect, restore and study all the instruments that were used by researchers in different academic disciplines. Every day we collect all kinds of instruments forsaken in the laboratories in order to preserve them as a “memory for the future”. We try to keep alive this heritage by organizing temporary exhibitions about different themes and producing audiovisual aids to help understanding how instruments actually work.
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