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The Museum of the History of Science   houses an unrivalled collection of historic scientific instruments in the  world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum building, the Old Ashmolean on  Broad Street, Oxford. By virtue of the collection and the building, the Museum  occupies a special position, both in the study of the history of science and in  the development of western culture and collecting.

The present collection of the  Museum preserves the material relics of past science. As a department of the  University of Oxford, the Museum has a role both in making these relics  available for study by historians who are willing to look beyond the  traditional confines of books and manuscripts as well as presenting them to the  visiting public. The objects represented - of which there are approximately  10,000 - cover almost all aspects of the history of science, from antiquity to  the early twentieth century. Particular strengths include the collections of  astrolabes, sundials, quadrants, early mathematical instruments generally  (including those used for surveying, drawing, calculating, astronomy and  navigation) and optical instruments (including microscopes, telescopes and  cameras), together with apparatus associated with chemistry, natural philosophy  and medicine. In addition, the Museum possesses a unique reference library for  the study of the history of scientific instruments that includes manuscripts,  incunabula, prints, printed ephemera and early photographic material. Website