National Collections Centre facts for kids
The unimposing entrance to the large site
|
|
| Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). | |
| Established | 1979 |
|---|---|
| Location | Wroughton, near Swindon, Wiltshire, England |
| Type | Science museum |
| National Museum of Science and Industry | |
| National Media Museum · National Railway Museum (Shildon Locomotion Museum) · Science Museum (Dana Centre, Science Museum Swindon) | |
The National Collections Centre is a huge storage and research place near Swindon, England. It's where the Science Museum Group keeps and looks after its amazing collections. It also houses the Science Museum Library & Archives.
Contents
What is the National Collections Centre?
The Science Museum first got this large 545-acre site in 1979. It used to be an airfield for the RAF Wroughton. The museum needed a big space to store its largest objects.
Today, about 35,000 items are kept here. They are stored in six old aircraft hangars and a special new building. These items include the world's first hovercraft and even de-activated nuclear missiles!
In 2007, the Science Museum Library and Archives also moved to this site.
The Centre on TV
Since 2016, the site has been featured on The Grand Tour. This is a popular car show. The show's hosts, who used to be on 'Top Gear', use some of the roads around the museum buildings as a test track for cars every week.
In 2018, the site got a new name: the National Collections Centre. This name shows that it's the main place where the Science Museum Group manages all its collections.
A new, very large building started being built in 2019. It will be 26,000 square meters big. This new facility will eventually hold over 400,000 objects from the collection.
What does the Centre do?
Looking After Collections
The main job of the National Collections Centre is to protect and manage the Science Museum Group's collections. More than 35,000 large objects are stored here. They are kept in the old aircraft hangars.
The Science Museum Group, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum used to store items at Blythe House in London. But they had to move out. The government gave the Science Museum Group £40 million. This money was used to improve the National Collections Centre. It helped create a high-quality place to manage the collections. Besides storage, the centre also has labs for conservation and research areas.
The new collections building will be finished in 2023. Until then, most of the objects at the centre are not usually open for public visits.
Amazing Objects Stored Here
Some of the cool objects kept at the centre include:
- A Douglas DC-3 aircraft
- A Boeing 247 aircraft
- A Lockheed Constellation airliner
- A double-decker bus
- A TV detector van
- The world’s first amphibious hovercraft
- Old electric cars from the early 1900s
- The Wood Press, which was the last hot metal printing press in Fleet Street
The Library and Archives
The Science Museum Library & Archives are part of the Science Museum in London. They hold original scientific, technical, and medical books and papers from the last 500 years.
The Library is free to use and open to the public. However, you need to book an appointment to visit. It is open on Fridays from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
History of the Library
The Science Museum Library started in 1883. It was first called the Science Library of the South Kensington Museum. It combined collections from other libraries. In 1907, it moved to the Royal College of Science building. When the Science Museum became independent in 1909, the Library became its responsibility.
In 1992, the Library joined with Imperial College London. They formed the Imperial College & Science Museum Libraries. Because more space was needed in London, about 85% of the collections moved. All the archives also moved to a special library building at Wroughton in 2007. The library in London closed in February 2014. All its collections were then moved to the Wroughton Library.
-
Science Museum Library & Archives at Wroughton
-
Reading room at the Science Museum Library & Archives, Wroughton
-
Some of the encyclopaedias in the library
What's in the Library Collections?
The printed collections have rare books and first editions. They also include journals from the 16th to the 20th centuries. There are old trade catalogs and exhibition catalogs. You can find British patents from 1617 to 1992. Plus, there are over 85,000 books about the history of science, technology, and medicine.
The archive collections hold original papers from famous scientists and companies. These include personal notes, photos, and technical drawings. You can find engineering drawings by Charles Babbage and Barnes Wallis. There are also papers about Donald Campbell and Hooper's car-building company.
The MS archives are smaller collections. They have over two thousand items. These can be single letters or notebooks. They offer quick looks into the lives of the people who created them. This material gives lots of information about science, design, and technology. It also shows insights into daily life.
Important Items in the Library
Some of the special items in the library and archives are:
- Charles Babbage's notebooks, engineering plans, and letters.
- Barnes Wallis’s plans for the bouncing bomb.
- Pearson PLC engineering papers and photos.
- Walt Patterson's collection about nuclear topics.
- Humphry Davy's letters.
- George Parker Bidder's papers.
- The New Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences.
Other Activities at the Site
The National Collections Centre is also used for other things. It's a place for research and development. Films and TV shows are sometimes made here. Other cultural groups use it for storage. New technology and energy projects also test their equipment here.
In 2013, a large solar farm was built on the site. It can produce 50 megawatts of power.
Images for kids
-
SRN1 Hovercraft
