Samuel JMM Alberti PhD FRSE is Director of Collections at National Museums Scotland. He trained in the history of science and medicine and wrote a thesis on late Victorian science at the universities of Leeds and Sheffield. He became interested in museums as the focus of historical study before working in them – first at the Manchester Museum, then as Director of Museums and Archives at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (which includes the Hunterian Museum).
Sam is an Honorary Professor at the University of Stirling Centre for Environment, Heritage and Policy. Previously he was Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. He has curated exhibitions on race, museum history, and the First World War; his books include Nature and Culture: Objects, Disciplines and the Manchester Museum (MUP, 2009) and Morbid Curiosities: Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain (OUP, 2011). His book on science and technology collections will be published in 2022.
Sam's research has focussed on the history of collections, in particular the trajectories and meanings of scientific, medical and natural objects in Britain since 1800. His current museum practice focuses on Cold War heritage and on museums and climate change.
Article
The Cold War in European museums - filling the 'empty battlefield'
Alberti SJMM & Nehring H (2022) The Cold War in European museums - filling the 'empty battlefield'. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 28 (2), pp. 180-199. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2021.1954054
Article
A laboratory for multi-century science
Cockell CS, Santomartino R, McMahon S, Reekie P, Alberti SJMM, Phillipson T & Russell S (2019) A laboratory for multi-century science. Astronomy & Geophysics, 60 (6), pp. 6.26-6.28. https://doi.org/10.1093/astrogeo/atz192
Book Chapter
The Art and Science of Replication: Copies and Copying in the Multi-Disciplinary Museum
JMM Alberti S, Blackwell A, Davidson P, Goldberg M & Swinney GN (2019) The Art and Science of Replication: Copies and Copying in the Multi-Disciplinary Museum. In: Brenna B, Dam Christensen H & Hamran O (eds.) Museums as Cultures of Copies: The Crafting of Artefacts and Authenticity. Routledge Research in Museum Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 13-26. https://www.routledge.com/Museums-as-Cultures-of-Copies-The-Crafting-of-Artefacts-and-Authenticity/Brenna-Dam-Christensen-Hamran/p/book/9780815364917
Article
Scientific instrument curators in Britain: Building a discipline with material culture
Alberti SJMM (2019) Scientific instrument curators in Britain: Building a discipline with material culture. Journal of the History of Collections, 31 (3), pp. 519-530. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy027
Article
Shaping scientific instrument collections: A historiography
Alberti SJMM (2019) Shaping scientific instrument collections: A historiography. Journal of the History of Collections, 31 (3), pp. 445-452. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy046
Book Chapter
Alberti SJMM (2018) Museum Nature. In: Curry H, Jardine N, Secord J & Spary E (eds.) Worlds of Natural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (CUP), pp. 348-362. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108225229.022
Article
Collecting contemporary science, technology and medicine
Alberti SJMM, Cox E, Phillipson T & Taubman A (2018) Collecting contemporary science, technology and medicine. Museum Management and Curatorship, 33 (5), pp. 402-427. https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2018.1496353
Article
Drawing Damaged Bodies: British Medical Art in the Early Twentieth Century
Alberti S (2018) Drawing Damaged Bodies: British Medical Art in the Early Twentieth Century. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 92 (3), pp. 439-473. https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2018.0055
Article
Alberti SJMM (2017) Why Collect Science?. Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies, 15 (1), Art. No.: 1. https://doi.org/10.5334/jcms.150
Article
Reflecting the Now: Project Management and Contemporary Collecting in a Multi-disciplinary Museum
Alberti SJMM, Allen S, Dectot X & Gill R (2017) Reflecting the Now: Project Management and Contemporary Collecting in a Multi-disciplinary Museum. Museum and Society, 15 (3), pp. 324-342. https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/2427