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Dear Mersenne-List colleagues, It is a grim time for culture nowadays. In the Netherlands, almost overnight, the present government has decided to cut severely the endowments given to cultural institutions and museums. Even unbelievable things are happening, such as the announcement by January 2013 of the closure for the public of the famous MUSEUM BOERHAAVE, the National Museum for the History of Science and Medicine of the Netherlands (!), if before the end of this year a sum of seven hundred thousand Euros’ not has been raised from public funds. You all know which fantastic treasures from the History of Science and Medicine are conserved, studied and presented in this Museum. It is a crazy idea that this is happening to a Museum which even has survived horrible events as World War II. So, the Museum Staff has started a campaign to avert this dreadful threat. Below you find an appeal to the international public to help Museum Boerhaave in their effort to save the Museum as a public institution, testifying the cultural importance of science and technology for Western Culture. I strongly recommend you to take serious notice of this text, and help whenever you can, to suggest ways to find the necessary funding before the end of this year. A second document attached to this mail is a letter of fierce protest to the Dutch Minister of Culture, written by a number of scholars working in the history of science, who by coincidence were present in The Hague, at the very day that this incredible measure was confirmed. Huib Zuidervaart Huygens ING Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ------------------------------------------- ‘SAVE MUSEUM BOERHAAVE!’ CAMPAIGN No museum without public Five hundred years of innovation in science and medicine make Museum Boerhaave the treasury of Holland knowledge-land. The Dutch National Museum for the History of Science and Medicine displays world-class heritage: technical inventions and medical breakthroughs that have determined our history. The Golden Age (Christiaan Huygens, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek), the Dutch Nobel Prize winners (Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Willem Einthoven, Niko Tinbergen, Paul Crutzen, Andre Geim), the oldest kidney dialysis machine by Willem Kolff, an early heart-lung machine: you’ll find them all (and much more) in Museum Boerhaave. Museum Boerhaave occupies a unique position in the world. Nevertheless, the museum, located in Leiden, is in difficulties. The reason is the sharpening by the Dutch government of the rules relating to the museum’s own income, and this with retroactive effect. As a result, the museum will be forced to generate an additional 700,000 euros of its own income in the remainder of 2011 on a one-off basis. If it fails, it will be closed to the public as of 1 January 2013. Museum Boerhaave, which is showing strong growth as far as visitor numbers and its own income are concerned, is doing everything it can to prevent this doomsday scenario. Under the slogan of 'Save Boerhaave!', a campaign has been launched to raise the necessary amount. The museum was given a tremendous boost in the form of a donation of € 100,000 that it received from an anonymous benefactor. A fantastic show of support and appreciation that shows that the museum counts. The benefactor is also calling upon other wealthy fans of the museum to follow his example. You can support the museum in a variety of ways. If you would like to make a donation and also to be kept informed, become a friend of the museum. Another option is to buy a replica of the famous seventeenth-century Van Leeuwenhoek microscope, the starting-point of microbiology. Private individuals or institutions can also pay to adopt instruments from the museum’s collection, such as Albert Einstein’s fountain pen or Christiaan Huygens’ pendulum clock. This also applies to entire rooms in the museum, including the Anatomical Theatre. For further information, please contact Annette Los (see below). No museum without public. Hence the call: ‘SAVE MUSEUM BOERHAAVE! Some quotes: “To attract young people to science and to be proud on what the native country has produced, Museum Boerhaave is indispensable.” - Frans de Waal, primatologist, Emort University, Atlanta. “The Boerhaave Museum is one of the most beautiful and instructive scientific museums, and its archive contains invaluable and still untapped resources that will remain of great interest in perpetuity.” - Diana Buchwald, General Editor of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. “In recent years, the Boerhaave Museum has developed into a vibrant place of research and a hub for international scholars in science studies. I was deeply impressed not only by the quality and richness of the exhibits but also by the many visitors who enjoyed the visit as much as I did. I was particularly pleased to see so many families with young children among your visitors.” - Helmuth Trischler, Head of Research of the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Further information can be obtained from: Dirk van Delft, Director of Museum Boerhaave, [log in to unmask], or from Annette Los, Public and Presentation Department, +31 (0)71 5662709, [log in to unmask] See also www.museumboerhaave.nl ------------------------------------------- The next letter of fierce protest was composed at the Huygens ING in The Hague at just after the bad news had been received. Please follow this example. Let the international community raise its voice in protest against this severe lack of cultural stewardship of the Dutch government. ------------------------------------------- The Hague, 1 July 2011 To Mrs. Marja van Bijsterveldt Minister for Education, Culture and Science & Mr. Halbe Zijlstra Under Secretary for Education, Culture and Science Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap Rijnstraat 50 NL-2515 XP The Hague The Netherlands We, a group of foreign researchers working in the History of European Science and Culture, who are currently attending an Expert meeting on the topic of digital ‘REPRESENTING THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS’, held at the Huygens ING of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, are shocked to hear about the proposed closure of MUSEUM BOERHAAVE, the Dutch National Museum for the History of Science and Medicine. Museum Boerhaave is a goldmine of artefacts of Dutch scientific and scholarly culture, the importance of which extends far beyond geographical boundaries. That such a Museum is in danger of being closed to the general public and withdrawn from scholarly inquiry is incomprehensible to us. Museum Boerhaave is internationally regarded as one of Europe’s very few institutes with a absolute top-notch collection of material artefacts in the fields of science, technology and medicine. Modern day Western culture, which is totally reliant on technology, would not be possible without the important achievements brought about by former generations. The study of historical artefacts has gained increasing importance in our field of research (i.e. the history of science, technology and medicine) in the last couple of decades. It would be a national embarrassment for the Netherlands if this unique collection testifying to the most important achievements of Western culture would become inaccessible to the general public and serious historical research. We therefore strongly advise you to reconsider this decision. In the short term it would only bring dubious financial savings. In the long term, the proposed closure of Museum Boerhaave would be a great loss for Western culture. Sincerely yours, Prof. Paula Findlen Stanford University, USA Prof Yves Gingras Université du Québec, Montréal, Canada Prof. Robert A. Hatch University of Florida, USA Prof. Howard Hotson University of Oxford / Cultures ofKnowledge, UK Prof. Martin Mulsow Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt Prof. Olav Simons Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt Dr. Douglas Anderson Medaille College, Buffalo, New York, USA Dr. Ivan Boserup Librarian, Royal Library Kopenhagen, DK Dr. James Brown University of Oxford / Cultures of KnowIedge, UK Dr. Martine van Ittersum University of Dundee, UK Neil Jefferies University of Oxford / Cultures of KnowIedge, UK Dr. Scott Weingart University of Bloomington, USA