One of the largest university collections of its kind, Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments was established in 1948 and currently holds over 20,000 items from the 15th century to today, representing an extensive range of scientific disciplines. The collection not only includes many historic prototypes, unusual devices and obsolete machines, it also features books, manuals, models, chemical samples, photographs and even toys used for learning about science. Initially part of the libraries and now under the Department of the History of Science, the Collection also has its own museum with changing exhibits in the Science Center building. 

Ranging from 1913 to 1973, the films from the collection are science films used for educational purposes, with psychology and biology the primary subjects. Within these fields, the films mostly feature an array of laboratory experiments—Equivalent and Non-Equivalent Stimuli in the Rat (1937), Wave Motion in an Inhomogeneous System (1965), Reactions in Plants and Animals (1934)—or analyses of physical phenomena—Walking Upstairs for the First Time (1924), Upright Vision Through Inverting Spectacles (1950). One remarkable exception is Fighting Triangles: Social Perception (ca. 1950), a film used to study viewers' psychological projections onto simple, animated shapes, an occurrence known as the Heider-Simmel illusion.