Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to request the total number of objects that you hold in your permanent collections, broken down if possible by your constituent museums.

If an exact figure is not available, please provide instead your estimated totals, along with an explanation as to how this figure was calculated.

Yours faithfully,

Frankie Roberto

P.S Please note that this same request has been made to all the UK museums covered under the Freedom of Information Act, and that your response will be automatically made public at http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/frank.... This request is partly a test of the WhatDoTheyKnow project. If you have any questions about the project, you can contact the project team at http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/contact

Thank you for your enquiry.

We will reply as soon as possible. There may a delay in your receiving a response, depending on the volume of enquiries we have received. However, a response will definitely be forwarded to you within 20 working days.

Kind regards,

National Museum of Science and Industry

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Dear Frankie Roberto,

Thank you for your email dated 4th May 2008 with regards to the total
number of objects in the Museum's collection. Figures taken from the
Science Museum website
(http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about_us...
bout_the_collections.aspx) indicate the Museum has around 300,000
objects "in its care" this includes objects on loan from other
institutions and the Wellcome Collection of Medical Objects. The
Museum's holdings are of course always changing to due to objects being
loaned out to other Museum's, objects being disposed from the collection
(once a lengthy process has been completed) and objects being
permanently acquired by the Science Museum. Special exhibits, the
current Dan Dare Making of Modern Britain Exhibition for example, also
inflate the Museum's collection with specific objects borrowed or
acquired for the length of the display.

I have conducted a research using the Museum's computerised data base. I
searched using the 'Year' field in which an object was acquired. The
numbers are of course rough estimates as the data base also doubles as a
records management system and some results may in actual fact be paper
files. Also errors or omissions at the time of entry can not be
discounted, the following break down is therefore a guide:

Objects acquired in the 1800s - 15429
1900-1909- 3019
1910-1919- 6258
1920- 1929- 14489
1930-1939- 12618
1940-1949- 4392
1950-1959- 8097
1960-1969- 7476
1970-1979- 26748
1980-1989- 50563
1990-1999- 44625
2000-Present- 24546
Loan- 2969
Total - 218 260

Please also note these results do not take into account the holdings of
the Science Museum's sister institutions.

I hope this information is of some use to and wish you all the best with
your research.

Rory Cook,
Documentation Centre,
Science Museum,
London,
SW7 2DD

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Dear Cook Rory,

Many thanks for providing that information.

You note that "these results do not take into account the holdings of the Science Museum's sister institutions."

Please could you also give totals for the objects in the Science Museum's sister museums, if available?

Yours sincerely,

Frankie Roberto

Dear Frankie Roberto,

Thank you for your email dated 6th May 2008. For information relating to
the National Museum of Science and Industry family of museums you will
need to contact them direct. Please visit the Science Museum's parent
organisation website for further information,
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/index.asp?flash=yes. As mentioned in my pervious
email the Science Museum's home page offers the figure 300,000 objects
in the NMSI's which at present is the best estimate.

I hope this figure is of some use to you and I wish you all the best for
your research.

Rory Cook,
Documentation Centre,
Science Museum,
London,
SW7 2DD

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Dear Cook Rory,

Many thanks for your response.

Could you please advise how best to contact the other museums via e-mail? http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/nmsipages/foicompl... only lists the foi@nmsi.ac.uk e-mail address, which is the one that requests made via the WhatDoTheyKnow website currently go to.

Yours sincerely,

Frankie Roberto

Dear Frankie Roberto,

You could try the individual Museum's direct, perhaps from their website
contact pages?

I hope this information help. However I am unsure as to how much they
will be able to assist as the results I initially supplied you with also
contained entries from the National Media Museum and the National
Railway Museum. I only suggest you contact these institutions to gain a
full and accurate figure and purely for the sake of completeness.
However as stated in the pervious correspondence the holdings of the
National Museum of Science and Industry amounts to around 300,000
objects.

Rory Cook,
Documentation Centre,
Science Museum,
London,
SW7 2DD

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