Compiled by Milo Phillips, Digitisation Coordinator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Welcome to the October edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.
A monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.
Sector News
Forensic Solutions to Pangolin Poaching
Does your collection include pangolins? Museum pangolins requested in an effort to build a stable isotope database.
The plight of the pangolin and intensification of poaching for traditional medicine is well-publicised. There is an urgent need for new forensic solutions to this crisis that transcend disciplines. The Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) are seeking small scale samples from any and all pangolin species held in UK museums. Of particular interest currently is the Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis).
The project aims to develop a robust, multi-isotope provenancing map which will make it possible to determine where specific confiscated scales are poached. It will do this using stable isotopes and spatial markers such as trace metals. The team at SUERC are happy to travel for in-house destructive sampling or can provide postage materials if the curators and collection managers would prefer to take samples themselves.
For details, please contact Ruth Lewis-Smith (r.lewis-smith.1@research.gla.ac.uk) at the University of Glasgow.
BSBI Upcoming Conferences
The Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland has two great opportunities to get involved coming up next month. The Scottish Botanists’ Conference will be held on November 4th at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and the British & Irish Botanical Conference will be held later in the month, on November 23rd. Both events are free to attend, and no BSBI membership is necessary. Programme and event details and can be found on their conference pages via the above links.
Call for Papers: Libraries of Science
A conference taking place on Friday 14 March 2025 at the Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, SW1 5YAG, London, 9.30 am – 5.00 pm. Deadline for submissions: 15 November 2024.
The Royal Society Centre for the History of Science invites papers focusing on scientific printed collections, offering the Royal Society’s own library as a test case, for a one-day in-person conference to take place on Friday 14 March 2025 at the Royal Society in London.
The digitisation of scientific information has transformed the role played by physical libraries in the diffusion of knowledge. As the internet has become the marketplace for new scientific ideas, older volumes are also increasingly available in digitised form.
Physical books and journals, and wider printed collections, have therefore become somewhat underused material for the history of science. In the same period, book history has also developed as a discipline. If significant attention has been paid in the scholarship to the production and diffusion of scientific knowledge in print form, much less has been written about scientific libraries, institutional and personal, as places of science.
This context makes it critical to focus the attention of historians of science back onto libraries as key places of scientific knowledge, and of book historians on the specific case of scientific collections.
Proposals are welcomed for 20-minute papers on any themes and any period related to scientific libraries, including:
- Book collections compiled and used by particular scientists
- Institutional libraries (the Royal Society Library and other scientific collections)
- Scientific readers and their use of printed material
- Women’s access to scientific collections
Please submit proposals (not exceeding 300 words, including a biographical note of c.50 words) for 20-minute papers to library@royalsociety.org by Friday 15 November 2024, with the subject line ‘Libraries of science: proposal for conference paper’.
NatSCA Lunchtime Chats
The new lunchtime chats are for members only and run on the last Thursday of every month.
This series is supposed to be informal, no fancy equipment is needed, it will be put out over the NatSCA Zoom platform and there is no fixed format. For those who want to take part please email training@natsca.org to put forward your idea. All members will have received a link to join via Zoom (the same link works for all sessions) – if you haven’t, get in touch with membership@natsca.org.
Where to Visit
Enter the Fascinating World of Fungi
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s Fungal Forms exhibition is in full swing and there’s still time to get yourself along to see it until December. An accompanying programme of events – including an evening talk from Merlin Shelldrake, author of Entangled Life – can be found here.
Fungi are responsible for life on land as we know it and integral to sustained living on earth.
They are a perpetual inspiration for artists. Through music, literature, fashion, design, scent and visual art, Fungi Forms will take you on a spectacular journey, exploring fungi in science, culture and innovation.
Manchester Science Festival and Injecting Hope: The Race For A Covid-19 Vaccine
From October 18th to the 27th, explore the extremes of nature, human capability and creativity through entertaining events, immersive performances, family fun and hands-on activities across 10 days of inspiring experiences as part of the Manchester Science Festival.
And while you’re there, why not uncover inspiring stories of scientists and innovators collaborating around the globe in a new, free exhibition, also at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester.
Discover how scientists and researchers adapted and collaborated during this challenging time to find solutions and save lives, and the impact this had on the world we live in today.
The exhibition runs until 17th November 2024. More information and booking details can be found here.
What to Read
We’ve got two wonderful NatSCA blog offerings this month for you.
Emilie Pearson, Curatorial Assistant at the Natural History Museum, London shares the Wonder of the NHM and talks to us about why public engagement is so important. Reflecting on their science communication journey through its ups and (pandemic-induced) downs, we get an insightful deep dive into the nuances of their work, the importance of adaptability, and the value of integrating ‘front-of-house’ and collections-side teams to provide the best experience for visitors to our museums.
After that, why not step into a Vilde, Vidunderlige Verden (wild, wonderful world) with Bethany Palumbo, Head of Conservation at the Natural History Museum Denmark, as they explore some fascinating object stories from the exhibition including the Ejby meteorite, a 300-year-old elephant foetus!
Where to Work
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is looking for a Workshop Technician and Mountmaker for their Nature +Love Project, focused on their natural history collection and galleries. Fixed-term 22 months; full-time; £28,805 pa. Closing date: 23rd October 2024.
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is looking for a Freelance Botanical Illustration Tutor to support the delivery and continued development of our Diploma in Botanical Illustration by facilitating student learning and providing guidance on botanical subjects relevant to the course. Freelance; remote options; £20.00 per hour; hours agreed with the Programme Coordinator. Closing date: 31st of October 2024.
SIGNIFY Project – New Curatorial Assistant Position
National Museum Cardiff are excited to announce that the Mollusca section have just secured nearly £30k of funding through the SIGNIFY (Singapore in Global Natural History Museums Information Facility) project. It is in partnership with the National University of Singapore and the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. The aim of this project is to digitally catalogue the globally dispersed historic natural history specimens from Singapore, collected over the past 200 years.
The project focuses exclusively on the Singapore molluscs in the Melvill-Tomlin collection, which holds over 1100 specimen lots. Much of this material was collected during the 1870s by Surgeon-Major Samuel Archer and contains specimens that represent the earliest species records to the country.
Part of the funding is being used to employ a Curatorial Assistant for a two-month period to focus on the digitisation of the specimens: Curatorial Assistant (Mollusca) | Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales iRecruit Careers Portal (ciphr-irecruit.com). Closing date: 22nd October.
Before You Go… If you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest please drop an email to blog@natsca.org. Similarly, if you have something to say about a current topic, or perhaps you want to tell us what you’ve been working on, we welcome new blog articles so please drop Jen an email if you have anything you would like to submit.
NatSCA 
