Lending and borrowing of museum objects
The museum has many objects on loan to other museums, and several of the loans extend over many years. Some of the items date back to a time when loans were documented in a different way than the museum does today, and it can sometimes be challenging to get an overview of older loans. A major review of such cases began in 2025, and the work will continue beyond 2026.
The museum lends objects and archives for exhibitions at museums and institutions at home and abroad. In 2025, the museum lent a large collection of medical objects to the Munch Museum, a loan that also included courier services and assistance with assembly. The museum has also extended loans of objects in connection with the exhibition Models and Miniatures. In total, the museum has 59 active loans of 274 objects and 20 loan cases from institutions and private individuals for several of our permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Photography and documentation
In 2025, the museum's photographer has worked particularly on photography related to collection audits, images for external communication and exhibition documentation. Photographing ongoing individual assignments for colleagues in the Exhibition and Collections Department, as well as Ask a Minister and other assignments from the Communication and Marketing Department have formed a significant part of the work.
The photographer has participated in the museum's collection work through work with industrial documentation. A documentation project of Ytteborg's beer cellar has been completed in connection with a doctoral thesis. The photographer has produced images for the photo history project, the book Usynlig til stede , and photographed objects in the communications hall for the security plan.
Mill
The museum's curators have implemented several measures to identify and combat a major clothes moth infestation at the museum, which without treatment would have posed a risk of damage to objects, including textiles and leather in the exhibitions. The measures were carried out in collaboration with Rentokil and included both localization by strategically placing moth traps, as well as remediation through thorough cleaning of exposed areas, targeted use of insecticide and heat treatment of the infested interior. With the infestation largely under control, monitoring using moth traps continues to ensure that any new infestations are detected in time, so that damage to the collections can be avoided. This is part of the museum's routine integrated pest management.
Revised collection plan
The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology 's collection plan for the period 2023-2027 sets out overall goals for the development of the museum's collections and is also intended to be a tool that translates these goals into concrete measures. The plan also contains a list of specific material that is desired to be collected during the period. In line with an ambition to prioritize contemporary documentation, this list has been revised halfway through the plan period. Collected objects were removed from the list, while new objects were added. The revised collection plan is openly available on the museum's website.
The museum is committed to reflecting on its collection practices. Many museums face similar challenges when it comes to the possibilities for active collection of contemporary technical, medical and scientific cultural heritage. The museum has participated in an international forum under French auspices (Mission PATSTEC) to discuss common approaches to this.
Security and valuables recovery
The work on securing the collections and planning for emergency valuables recovery (RVR) continues. This year, the plan for the warehouse at Gjerdrum has been completed and is available to the Fire and Rescue Service in the event of incidents. Evacuation zones have been clarified, and a list of prioritized items has been reviewed.
As of today, we have an RVR plan for exhibited objects at Kjelsås and stored objects at Gjerdrum. Work on object prioritization and practical arrangements has begun for the storage at Fet.
The work on the asset recovery plan is ongoing, and revision and assessment of priorities should be done annually.
The museum is a member of the Crisis Resource Cooperation for Cultural Institutions in Oslo and Akershus (KKOA) and participated in the spring and autumn meetings for useful information and networking.
The museum has purchased and has available equipment and tools in emergency kits at Kjelsås, Gjerdrum and Fet. This equipment has been registered and will also be available to other institutions via the KKOA collaboration if they report an urgent need.
Library
The library contains one of Norway's largest collections of technology and industrial history literature in addition to an extensive collection of medical history, telecommunications and science history books. Registration of the medical book collection continued in 2025. Approximately 80 shelf meters of books have so far been entered into Alma and are therefore searchable in Oria. The books are arranged with plenty of room for growth. There remain approximately 230 shelf meters of unregistered books from the medical collection. Occasionally, very old and rare books appear. Those older than 1830 are packed in acid-free boxes and stored lying down in the local magazine.
The work that began in 2023 to separate medical special editions and register them as part of the archives to which they belong, in Asta, has been completed. Large quantities of duplicate copies have been removed. The special edition collection amounts to 26 shelf meters.
The journal collection from the National Hospital has been registered in Alma and moved from archive-depth shelves to regular shelves. It amounts to 110 shelf meters.
Approximately 70 new books have been purchased. The library subscribes to seven Norwegian and seven foreign journals in paper format, many of which are also available online. In addition, a large number of free subscriptions are received. Subscription to JSTOR, which provides access to international research and scholarly articles, is maintained. Subscription to the Norwegian media monitoring service Retriever was terminated in 2025.
Archives
In 2025, six new archive creators and eight new archives were registered in Asta. There is one new archive from the National Hospital's collections, three doctors' archives, one private individual's archive, one association archive and two corporate archives. All the archives are published on the Archive Portal, some with restrictions. In addition to the eight newly registered archives, additions have been made to previously registered archives from the National Hospital. The registered archives from medical collections amount to 54 shelf meters. In the second half of the year, the museum switched to Asta 7. After some challenges with the conversion, it is now a great improvement to work in the new program.
Water leak
A water leak in the museum building at Kjelsås on 10 January 2024 caused damage to several shelves of books and journals in the book store. The damaged material was sent to be frozen in an external cold storage facility. A decision was then made that the museum's historical book collection should be preserved, while the foreign journals that were damaged were discarded.
In 2025, the museum continued to work on the case. In February, a visit was made to the cold storage facility, where an estimated 213 shelf meters of journals were marked for destruction and four pallets with an estimated 1,000 books from the historical book collection were marked for restoration by freeze-drying. After this, two different companies were considered for carrying out the work. The assignment went to Polygon, with freeze-drying at the company Harwell in the United Kingdom. In November, the books were sent in a freezer container to Harwell, where the drying process is underway. Representatives from the museum's conservation and collection group visited the facility in December and were able to see the treatment of the damaged books and the other work being carried out at Harwell. The books should be fully restored and returned to the museum in early 2026.
In November, a safety device was installed under the ceiling of the book store in case of further water leaks. Plastic sheets will direct the water out into the aisle and the back aisles by the shelves in one half of the room to prevent the library's materials from being damaged by water again. The museum has received support for this from the UNI Foundation.
Preservation
Conservation at the museum is linked to exhibition, lending and collection management work as well as some consultancy work. The focus in 2025 has been on upgrading the sawmill exhibition, work with backlogs at Kjelsås and work on one of the museum's remote storage facilities. Conservation of backlogs in the medicine collection at Kjelsås has taken place in the conservation workshop in the museum's temporary exhibition hall. This has made it possible for the public to follow this work.
In 2025, the museum's equipment and professionals were leased to other museums and cultural heritage managers.