Welcome to the weekly digest of posts from around the web with relevance to natural science collections. We hope you find this useful and if you have any articles that you feel would be of interest, please contact us at blog@natsca.org
1. Social Media: Museum Week on Twitter
24th to 30th March 2014
Synopsis
Museums across Europe are using the hashtag #MuseumWeek on twitter all this week. The aim is to improve the social media presence of museums by encouraging dialogue between both museums and the public, and between museum professionals. Alongside the weeklong hashtag #MuseumWeek there are individual daily themes, the remaining of which are as follows:
Thursday #BehindTheArt
Friday #AskTheCurator
Saturday #MuseumSelfies
Sunday #GetCreative
Everyone is encouraged to join in all week.
2. Blog: Work Experience from the Dinosaur Isle Museum
Alex Peaker, Dinosaur Isle Museum, Isle of Wight, and Emma Bernard, Natural History Museum, London
Synopsis
Alex Peaker is a curator at the Dinosaur Isle Museum on the Isle of Wight. He recently came to London to work with Emma Bernard, a curator at the NHM, for a week. Bernard begins the blog by talking of how important it is to maintain communications between museum professionals, and seeking help and advice from others when needed. Peaker describes his role at the Dinosaur Isle Museum and explains how invaluable the time he spent at the NHM was to him.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/research/earth_sciences_news/fossil_fish?fromGateway=true
Dinosaur Isle Museum, Isle of Wight. The building was designed to look like a huge Pterosaur. Image by Editor5807
3. Training: British Council – UCL Museum Training School
British Council and University College London
Synopsis
The closing date for applications to the British Council and UCL Museum Training School is 18th April. There are four courses to choose from, or you can register for multiple courses. They are:
How to build local, national and international partnerships
How to develop exhibitions
How to develop a schools and learning programme
How to develop community engagement programmes
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/our-work/international/
The next post is a bit harrowing, so here is a baby rhino playing to start you off on a high. (C) Emma-Louise Nicholls
4. Blog: Objects Safe After Cuming Museum Fire
Patrick Steel, Museums Association
Synopsis
Cuming Museum in London was struck by fire in March of last year, in which ‘two of three displays were lost’. One year on, Steel reports on the current location of the collections and the status of the Museum. The blog looks at how many specimens were lost and what types of conservation procedures were required for those that were damaged.
5. Survey: Testing the European Competency Framework for VET Collections Management
EU Leonardo project, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
A request from the Project:
‘In the EU Leonardo project ‘Testing the European Competency Framework for VET Collections Management’ (EUColComp), the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) is responsible for WP 2 “Research training needs and stakeholder analysis”. This 2-year project is coordinated by NHM London and started October 2013.
A questionnaire to inventory past and present training resources in conservation and care of natural history collections, available in Europe (and beyond) is online at:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/survey_training_NHcollections
The results of the survey will be used to develop a ‘Vocational Education and Training’ curriculum to assist staff in developing the appropriate competencies.
If you provide training in the field of natural history collections conservation and care or if you are aware of training others provide, please spare 5 min of your time to help gather this valuable information.
Many thanks for your help with this!
Kind regards,
The EUColComp team
a Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation funded project’
Compiled by Emma-Louise Nicholls, NatSCA Blog Editor
NatSCA 