The approach is often multidisciplinary, crossing boundaries into fields like social history, architectural history, urban sociology, urban geography business history, and archaeology.
As well as the large machinery objects, the collections cover the fields of industrial history, social history, fine art, archives, business papers, photographs, costumes, and numismatics.
The collections are held under the following headings: social history, science and technology, maritime, land transport, fine art, decorative and applied art, archives and archaeology.
The term is considered to be anachronistic in the 21st century although it has considerable importance in social history and appears in many literary works.
Her literary works include personal essays, short stories, novels, poems, travelogues, childrens stories, and books on sant literature, folk literature, and social history.
