Systematics as Cyberscience: Computers, Change, and Continuity in Science by Christine Hine. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A., 2008. 320 pp., illus. Trade. ISBN: 0-262-08371-X

Constructing publics in museums’ science communication

“…Amateur naturalists also make crucial discoveries, as in the case of the German amateurs who discovered “insect Armageddon.” Consequently, the relationship between amateur communities and professional science remains in flux after 200 years of development (Barton, 2003), and I concur with Nieto-Galan (2016) that “a firm distinction between experts, amateurs or dilettantes and the general public seems dubious” (p. 91), not least because professional scientists also “became ‘amateur’ popularizers” (p. 101). One important development that may have distanced natural history research museums from amateur naturalists is the study of natural history from a field science to one that increasingly takes place in laboratories (Hine, 2008; Latour, 1987).…”

The Right Time for the Job? Insights into Practices of Time in Contemporary Field Sciences

“…Historians have scrutinized the changes in field practices over time, stressing for instance the exchanges between lab and field-practices at the end of the nineteenth century (Kohler 2002a), or the impact of the recent development of informatics and digital databases (Hine 2008; Strasser 2011). History in science, rather than of science, has also been investigated (Daston 2012).…”

The Emergent Qualities of Digital Specimen Images in Biology

“…As Hine (2008) describes, a variety of factors have driven the expansion of online collections of digital specimen images which are provided, in large part, by the institutions that hold the material specimens. One set of factors promoting growth in digital specimen image collections revolves around concerns about the inefficiency of traditional working practices, in the face of the massive task facing the profession of cataloguing as yet undescribed species.…”

“…Taking as its backdrop the computerization movements which promoted the production of digital specimen image collections (Hine 2006;Hine 2008), this paper analyses accounts collected via email from taxonomists working with digital images in 2005/6, at a point when digital collections of specimens had become widely available but their use not yet entirely commonplace. The paper first briefly introduces the recent digitization movement in systematics, and then outlines perspectives from research in new media and representation in scientific practice to justify an expectation that the qualities of digital and physical objects will be emergent in contexts of practice.…”