For curator, slide rules are cutting edge
A simple relic of Nerd-dom to many, the slide rule is ''one of the most technologically significant" objects of the 20th-century that has never been studied, according to Deborah Douglas, science and technology curator of the MIT Museum. And with nearly 1,000 slide rules in her collection -- ranging from a 6-foot-tall ''teaching" slide rule to a hand-held aviation version -- Douglas ought to know.
In January, her museum announced its acquisition of the Keuffel and Esser Co. slide rule collection -- one of the largest corporate collections in the United States -- and since then engineering enthusiasts have responded with no small measure of interest.
''You cannot overestimate the passion that engineers and scientists of that generation have for the slide rule," said Douglas, carefully sorting these precursors to the calculator with her white curator's gloves. ''I get a call every other day from people asking if I want their slide rule."
Douglas, 42, is the first-ever science curator of this quirky Cambridge museum, which is one of the few science museums in the country geared to adults instead of children. Her exhibits contain dancing robots, microwave pulses, and even a swatch of cloth from the Wright brothers' first airplane. But these above-ground items make up only a small fraction of the 6,000 items that Douglas cares for as if they were her own.
Deep in the museum's basement, behind a series of locked doors, in a place where the rumble of the Red Line provides the only audible distraction, Douglas tends to the bulk of the collection. Dusty plastic sheets protect 19th-century telephones and antique electric fans. A prototypical robotic arm rests against the wall idly, its wires exposed. In the corner stands a tangle of metal and glass the size of a telephone booth -- the 1950s version of a 64-megabyte memory chip, which is now small enough to fit in the palm of a child's hand.
This is where Douglas brings the ''babies left at your door" -- mysterious pieces of electronics or engineering that are pulled out of MIT closets and dumped on her. It is her job to find out what they are and whether to keep them.
The endless rows of relics testify to MIT's contribution to American technology, but they also present problems to a generation of museum-goers who expect the polished curves of iPods when they go to see a museum dedicated to technology.
''Cutting-edge technology rarely looks cutting-edge," Douglas said as she pointed to a decidedly unslick robot with yellow and gray exposed wires.
Her job as curator is not only to collect objects, but also to place them into a narrative of MIT's nearly 150 years of history. This isn't always a matter of accumulating more stuff.
''Many people focus on the acquisition act of the museum, and don't realize that deaccessioning is as much a part of the equation," Douglas said. ''You have finite space. It costs money."
Unlike curators at larger museums, Douglas does not have the luxury of leaving the maintenance and restoration to a ''raft load" of technical specialists. So, when it came time to restore the 1950s computer core memory storage unit, disfigured by dirt and grime, she was glad she had long ago learned to get her hands dirty.
Two decades ago, she took part in Project Daedalus, a group of 20-somethings who built a 68-pound airplane that flew on the power of the pilot's pedaling.
''I'm not an engineer and I don't try to pretend to be one," Douglas said, ''but [Project Daedalus] changed the types of questions that I would ask in that setting and it often provided a measure of credibility that none of my history degrees could do.
''Being aware of how things are being put together is very important. If I was afraid to touch stuff, that would be a problem."
Home: Arlington.
Education: Doctorate in the history and sociology of science, University of Pennsylvania, 1996.
The Temple of Doom: Douglas calls herself part explorer, part storyteller. She's even been compared to Indiana Jones. ''When we open that big fire door that weighs 5,000 pounds, many people have said it's like entering the Temple of Doom," Douglas said. ''The notion of exploring is something that is very real for me."
Cyclical historian: Douglas rides her bike to and from work every day, turning the 6.7-mile trip from Arlington to Cambridge into a chance for exploration. ''Biking allows you to cover a much wider range than walking and running, but slow enough in pace that you can see things." In 2003, she biked 4,300 miles across the northern United States and Canada. She calculated it was between 1.7 and 1.9 million turns of the bicycle crank.
Taking flight: Aviation history is her special interest, and she is working on a book about the history of American airports.
All the world is a museum, and we are all merely exhibits: Douglas is taking part in a project to turn MIT's campus into an outdoor museum. Using cellphones and GPS technology, participants will be able to dial up to a database and learn the history of the buildings around them. Douglas says the program is scheduled for MIT's 150th anniversary in 2011. ''It's instead of a boring anniversary book."
Of museums and men: After college, she worked at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, where she was struck by the male-dominated take on the narrative of flight. ''Almost all of the actors depicted on the walls of the aircraft, the stories that are told, whether pilots, engineers, or manufacturers, were overwhelmingly male," Douglas says. ''You could go through the whole museum and not really notice anything was different and then all of a sudden you saw this display about a woman and you said, 'Oh, right.' "
Favorite slide rule: One for calculating the amount of hydrogen needed in an airship for lift.
