Collecting Experiments

Databases have revolutionized nearly every aspect of our lives. Information of all sorts is being collected on a massive scale, from Google to Facebook and well beyond, to produce new knowledge. But as the amount of information in databases explodes, we are being forced to reassess our ideas about what knowledge is, how it is produced, to whom it belongs, and who can be credited for producing it.   There is perhaps no better example of the power and importance of databases than what we find today in the practice of science. There, databases have become more common than microscopes, voltmeters, and test tubes. Every scientist working today – whether in the laboratory, field, museum, or observatory – draws on databases to produce scientific knowledge. The increasing amount of data produced by disciplines from astronomy to zoology has led to major changes in research practices. It has also led to profound reflections on the role of data and databases in science, and the proper professional roles of data producers, collectors, curators, and analysts.  "Collecting Experiments" traces the development and use of data collections, especially in the experimental life sciences, from the early twentieth century to the present. It shows that the current revolution is best understood as the coming together of two older ways of knowing – collecting and experimenting, the museum and the laboratory. Ultimately, Bruno J. Strasser argues that by serving as repositories of things and knowledge, as well as indispensable tools for producing new knowledge, these databases are functioning as new digital museums for the twenty-first century.