Now in its thirtieth year, the Artefacts consortium (and its eponymous series) brings together a community of historians of science, technology, engineering and medicine who use material culture in historical study and public display. This volume of the series examines use, unfolding the intangible histories, experiences and, most critically, the artisanal knowledge that aretfacts can embody or evoke. The authors draw on ethnographic and material research methods (including observation of the self and others using artefacts, oral and audiovisual testimony, film, and close observation of the artefacts, often alongside more familiar textual and archival sources) to argue that examining artefacts can help illuminate entanglements between artisanal theory, practice and knowledge. It is the editors’ contention that including material culture in historical study can both answer research questions and open new avenues for exploration.

Maubach’s opening chapter suggests that capturing artisanal knowledge is achievable, clearly articulating valuable methodolgies for the researcher and practitioner. But the remaining authors are more ambivalent about the possibilities of capturing or communicating the elusive nature of artisanal or embodied knowledge. Their variety of approaches, understandings and conclusions reflects the subtle nature of tacit knowledge. Dubois (Chapter 2) and Winkin (Chapter 3) both direct our attention to the value of the artisan to restore what Dubois terms the ‘gesture of making’ to historic collections, inviting us to place historic artefacts and contemporary crafts within the same long history of use. In Winkin’s simple yet evocative personal reminiscence, using the objects recalls his father’s gestures, but he falls short of the artisanal knowledge embodied within his father’s actions. In contrast, Dubois’s theory-laden account describes sustained ethnographic research with a range of contemporary craftspeople to capture the expertise gained through their embodied, material practice. Meanwhile, Hoskins (Chapter 4) argues for the importance of artefacts themselves for understanding historic processes. For example, the research team seeking to digitally replicate an engraved roller for printing underglaze blue ceramic designs (commonly known as willow pattern) examined multiple examples in museums. The variability they found – from crisply printed to blurred, almost obscured patterns – revealed how differences in the printing process created different visual effects from a standard design. The case studies of Harlizius-Klück and Mamidipudi (Chapter 6) and Dufaux (Chapter 9) make clear how knowledge of use and ‘technological trajectory’ contrasts with standard narratives of innovation. Dufaux’s quote of Jean-Baptiste Say (‘knowledge of an art can only be learned in the workshop’) is amusingly illustrated through Harlizius-Klück and Mamidipudi’s account of a Chirali weaver’s joy at finally observing a particular weft technique after a frustrating failed verbal explanation of it. This insight has implication for museums who must then use collections acquired to demonstrate innovation to communicate the knowledge of use, without ‘succumbing to overinterpretation’ (p. 205). Perhaps the best example of this conundrum is in the question of how to bring the complex, socio-technical gestures of the operating theatre to life for visitors when displaying isolated implements – sadly, Kneebone leaves this question unanswered (Chapter 5).

The volume appears several years after the conferences which inspired it and readers would benefit from combining it with more recent scholarship. Driver, Mark Nesbitt and Caroline Cornish, Mobile Museums: Collections in Circulation (2021) and the BJHS Themes (2019) issue on How Collections End are particularly pertinent; both volumes reflect a move towards examining dispersal and disposal from collections rather than the collection itself. Understanding Use focuses less on how museums preserve and interpret objects – though contemporary debates around museum documentation and participatory practice are highly prevalent in the UK museum sector. Casonato’s (Chapter 8) illustration of how intangible cultural heritage offers a means to capture and value sociohistorical and cultural practices, knowledge and skills is therefore timely, given that the UK government ratified the 2003 UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2024. The volume is silent on the practical question of how an external researcher might achieve the level of access needed to use museum collections in these ways. Access to observe and study is widely understood, but facilitating more complex research methods such as simulation-based re-enactment is more resource-intensive. Alberti et al. (Chapter 10) are right to state that greater familiarity is needed for confident artefact-based research, but it is needed on both sides of the museum door.

In many ways, this is a book I wish I’d had as a fledgling curator. I count myself amongst those who feel the ‘absence of attention to the intangible heritage of use’ (p. 2). In issuing a ‘call to arms’ for artefact-based research in their introduction, Boon et al. have provided weapons of choice and a battle plan. These qualities are as useful to the student or scholar ‘not already versed in using stuff’ (p. 222) as they are to those working in museums. Maubach and Kneebone (Chapters 1 and 5) offer the most clearly laid out methods for those looking for guidance on how to re-create this work. Boyle (Chapter 7) and Dufaux challenge us to understand more deeply how museums’ (non-)use has influenced understanding of artefacts, whilst Boyle invites us to search and advocate for the research value of science and technology collections.

Understanding Use is beautifully illustrated in colour, as one might expect for a volume examining artefacts, and the illustrations generally help the reader to understand the authors’ arguments. The images of Inglis’s typing position and view of the Barlock typewriter particularly convey the volume’s central tenet – that using artefacts is useful for research. Although it is frustratingly difficult to annotate the hard copy, its publication in open access offers hope of reaching new audiences for material-culture research.