Written by Jan Freedman, NatSCA Committee Member and Curator of Natural History at Plymouth Museums Galleries Archives.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Festive celebrations are beginning, and this monthly digest is a bonanza of great things!
What Should I Do?
Big Natural Science conferences: Dates for your diaries!
Dead Interesting: Secrets of Collections Success: The NatSCA 2019 conference and AGM will be held at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin between 1st and 3rd May 2019. The conference aims to unlock the secrets of collections success by sharing how we have used collections to benefit their organisations, communities and the wider world. The conference will focus on three themes:
- Collections: Reveal your collections care, research and access secrets.
- Engagement: What are your engagement success stories and how did you make them happen?
- Museums and Tech: How has technology helped you unlock, understand and unleash your collections?
The call for abstracts is open, so have a look and present some of your amazing work to colleagues! All the information is here.
Making the Case for Natural History Collections: The annual conference for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) is happening in Chicago between 25th and 31st May 2019. The theme is focusing on what curators and collections staff do and why their collections are so important. More information about the conference is here. A long way to travel? Don’t worry, there are travel grants available.
Trading Nature: The summer meeting and AGM of the Society for the History of Natural History, is this year being jointly organised with The Geological Curators Group. It will be held at the King’s Manor, University of York between 4th and 5th June 2019. The interesting theme will look at the role of agents, dealers and commercial enterprises in the history of natural history.
NatSCA have organised a seminar day on fundraising, to take place on Wednesday 30th January 2019. The seminar, Finding Funds for Fossils, Ferns and Flamingos: How to secure money for museum collections, is packed full of interesting talks which can help us to look for funding for projects. For details and booking, click here.
What Should I apply For?
Fancy a move? The San Bernardino County Museum, in California, is looking for a Curator of Earth Sciences. Full details here.
What Should I Read?
Sit back, grab a mince pie, and relax. There’s lots to read over Christmas:
Kirsty Lloyd, CryoArks Technician at the Natural History Museum, London, has written about Making Replicas of your Specimens on the Geological Curators’ Group blog– Forget 3D printing, this is the cheaper, original, and still very detailed way of doing it!
Nadine Gabriel wrote about an interesting one day event focusing on Collectors, Collections and the Geology of SW Britain. From map makers to Ice Age animals, there’s a lot happening in the South West!
Jan Freedman, Curator of Natural History at Plymouth Museums, Galleries and Archives, wrote a little about label writing in museums: can museum labels be more fun and engaging?
Brian Switek talks about the many ways women get left out of palaeontology. A really interesting, mind-opening read.
From Adam Koszary, social media manager at The Merl, Seven broad statements that may or may not help your museum do a bit better at social media. A great and interesting read.
Or why not just browse through our growing Notes & Comments, online publications, from book reviews to exhibitions, there’s some nice articles to get your teeth into.
From all the NatSCA committee, we wish all our members a very happy and relaxing Christmas break!
NatSCA 