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. Blog: Natural Support from Colleagues

Jan Freedman, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

Synopsis

The way to best manage and safeguard our natural history collections is to ask for help and guidance from each other, says Freedman. He talks about the different types of natural sciences collections and hazards that we should look out for.

http://www.museumsandheritage.com/advisor/news/item/3242

To care for and manage our collections, Freedman explains why it’s best to ask each other for help. The Smilodon cast LDUCZ-Z2724 at the Grant Museum of Zoology. (C) UCL / Grant Museum of Zoology

2. Blog: On the Origin of Our Specimens

Emma-Louise Nicholls, Grant Museum of Zoology

Synopsis

In a 12 part series, Nicholls looks at each of the curators that have cared for the collections at the Grant Museum over the last 186 years. Illustrating the series with specimens that can be directly attributed to specific curators, she tells the story of the Museum by demonstrating how each curator added to and steered the development of the collections.

http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/tag/on-the-origin-of-our-specimens/

The Grant Museum as it was in the 1880s. (C) UCL / Grant Museum of Zoology

3. Paper: Natural History’s Place in Science and Society

Joshua j. Tewksbury, John G. T. Anderson, Jonathan D. Bakker, Timothy J. Billo, Peter W. Dunwiddie, Martha J. Groom, Stephanie E. Hampton, Steven G. Herman, Douglas J. Levey, Noelle J. Machnicki, Carlos Martínez del Rio, Mary E. Power, Kirsten Rowell, Anne K. Salomon, Liam Stacey, Stephen C. Trombulak and Terry A. Wheeler.

Synopsis

An interesting look at how natural history is of vital importance to a wide range of disciplines. Despite this, it seems that there has been a decline in support for natural history in developed economies. The paper argues that the support should be reinforced as natural history provides a significant benefit to society.

http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/03/23/biosci.biu032.full

Compiled by Emma-Louise Nicholls, NatSCA Blog Editor