In the 'early days' our exhibitions were often of short duration - and in someone else's premises - but now that we have our own home, we have the luxury of mounting bigger exhibitions, lasting for months rather than days or weeks.
We opened in Burntisland, with a short 'taster' in 2005. The building was still in a dire condition, but we managed to produce a display entitled WW2 - 60 years On, in time for the 60th anniversary of VE Day which saw the end of hostilities in Europe. This allowed us to meet the local people for the fist time, and gain insight into their reactions, which were very positive and favourable!
In 2006, we had Get the Picture! a television exhibition, dedicated to the memory of John Logie Baird, who died 60 years previously .... During the course of this exhbition, we were honoured and delighted to welcome to the exhibition, and also as members of the Foundation, Baird's daughter Diana and two of his grandchildren!
Our exhibition in 2007, From Big Band to Broadband traced the development of home entertainment technology, from cylinder graphophone to iPod and allowed us to show the extent of our Collection.
The very exciting Chips with Everything in 2008 celebrated 50 years of the silicon chip and 60 years of the transistor.
In 2009 we took part in the national 'Homecoming Scotland' event, with a fabulous exhibition of Great Scots who Changed the World, as inventors and innovators in the field of communication.
We found so many Great Scots, that in 2010, we simply added to the list! The amazing Mary Somerville (1780 - 1872), spent all her formative years in Burntisland .... Somerville College Oxford is named in her honour, as are an island within the Arctic Circle, a Lunar crater and an asteroid!
In 2011, with our 'Great Scots' back into storage, we produced Words, Wires, Waves - and the World Wide Web which traced some of the major developments in communications over the last few hundred years.
The WORDS section displayed several elderly 'hands-on' typewriters and told the story of how the introduction of this machine and the invention of Pitman shorthand revolutionised commercial practice across the world. Various aids for the blind/partially sighted and a cased display of hearing aids were displayed.
WIRES came next, with examples of early Electric Telegraphy, including the beautiful diamond-shaped Cooke & Wheatstone electric telegraph (1839) that was used on the Great Western Railway.
The all-time favourite Strowger Exchange appeared in the Telephony section, which included a replica of Bell's first telephone - made out of oak (what else!) and completely unrecognisable today!
We illustrated WAVES with a few 'milestone' examples of
The exhibition ended with sections devoted to computers, tracing developments from the 1940s up to the WORLD WIDE WEB....
Early computers relied on valves and were huge, slow, expensive and power-hungry. With the advent of integrated circuits, they have become increasingly smaller, faster, cheaper, more complex and with much lower power consumption. On display were items ranging from a mechanical bomb-sight computer from a WW2 Lancaster bomber, through the first PCs of the 1980s, leading to the development of the WWW and today'a technology - which, in such a short time, has become a major part of our everyday life, and is taken for granted!
Museum of Communication