Sloane’s Treasures

The Sloane’s Treasures project (February 2012-February 2013), recipient of an AHRC ‘Science in Culture’ Exploratory Award, sought to develop future cross-disciplinary research projects on Sloane’s collection, bringing together academics, librarians, curators, and other experts from the arts, humanities and sciences, in a dialogue on crucial science and culture questions relating to the collections. The project held a series of three workshops, recorded in podcasts: ‘Understanding Sloane’s Natural Objects’, Natural History Museum, April 2012 (listen here), ‘Understanding Sloane’s Artificial Rarities’, British Museum, May 2012 (listen here), ‘Text and Transcription’, British Library, July 2012 (listen here). Invited international attendees addressed specific issues such as: methods of transcribing, digitizing and cataloguing Sloane’s own manuscript catalogues of his collections of natural history, cultural objects and books; the potential not only for academic research but also for diverse public engagement, access and understanding; new ways of using new technology to reconstruct and reconnect the past across the sciences and humanities.