This report on adaptation has been brought to you by curatorial trainee Adam Peel.

One particular talk I found really interesting at this year’s NatSCA conference at the WMC in Cardiff was the one delivered by Paolo Viscardi, Justine Aw, and Russell Dornan about ‘Rising to the challenge’. The talk was essentially about how adaptation is needed within NatSCA itself and museum collections.
A rather interesting aspect of the talk (for myself anyway) was delivered by Justine Aw who discussed the makeover which the NatSCA website has recently undergone as well as some of the features that have been added. I found the addition of the crowd-sourced interactive map on the page ‘Natural History Near You’ to be the most intriguing. This is a section of the website where museum professionals, members of NatSCA or anyone who has access to the internet and an interest in Natural History can enter information on Natural History collections across the UK & Ireland.

To do this, the webpage allows people to add/edit existing information and even for people to add their own new entries to the map by filling in a form at the bottom of the page.
It is important for us to keep records of Natural History collections, as people need to know about them in order to get the most out of them, no matter how big or small a collection is, as well as them providing us all with physical records of what is happening at all levels.

This, with the other recent additions to the site and the general makeover, show just how seriously NatSCA and everyone involved with Natural History take adapting in order to keep up with the rest of the world & technology.