Exploring Emotion, Care, and Enthusiasm in “Unloved” Museum Collections

Anna Woodham is Lecturer in Arts and Cultural Management at King's College London. Alison Hess is Research and Public History Manager at the Science Museum, London. Rhianedd Smith is the Director of the Heritage and Creativity Institute and UMASCS Director of Academic Learning and Engagement Programmes at the University of Reading.

• Introduction: Exploring Emotion, Care and Enthusiasm in “Unloved” Museum CollectionsSection One: Enthusiasts and Care for CollectionsChapter One: Unlocking the Meanings of Collections: Expertise, care and the Science Museum’s locks and fastenings collection, Alison HessChapter Two: “A hawk from a handsaw:” Investigating enthusiasm for rural hand tools, Rhianedd SmithChapter Three: What’s in a Name? The ethics of care and an “unloved” collection, Anna Woodham and Shane KelleherSection Two: “Unloved” CollectionsChapter Four: “Storehouses of unimagined treasures:” Delightful rummaging and artists’ responses to “unloved” collections, Alexandra WoodallChapter Five: No data, No Use? Changing use and valuation of natural history collections, Mark CarnallChapter Six: Getting to Grips with Medical Handling Collections: Medical Memories, Specialist Knowledge and Community Engagement Around “Unloved” Objects, Mark Macleod Section Three: Emotional ResearchChapter Seven: Emotions and Lost Objects, Sheila WatsonChapter Eight: Care-full Academic Labour: Encountering Care in Collections-Based Research, Francesca Church With a foreword by Rhianedd SmithVolume Conclusion: how to put a little love in your stored collection, Rhianedd Smith and Anna WoodhamIndex

This book is a welcome addition to material culture and museum/heritage studies.[...] A tightly articulated set of guiding questions (around care, emotion and collections) tie the various threads together. By focusing on the emotional response and caring practices of museum professionals and external stakeholders working with stored collections (and especially with objects considered by others to be ‘dull’ or ‘uninteresting’), a range of sub-themes are addressed including curatorial practice, expertise, knowledge, ownership and value.[...]By arguing for material culture and museum/heritage studies to pay much greater theoretical and empirical attention to stored collections (in ways that go beyond understanding these simply through the lens of collections management issues), the book ultimately demonstrates how ‘unloved’ collections provide a rich nexus for wider debate on themes such as expertise and public agency, the politics of participatory heritage, concepts of care and affective, emotional modes of heritage engagement. In sum, this is a nicely written and illustrated book which offers a stimulating and original take on museum collections.