Category Archives for Advocating Collections

Uses of Natural History Collections – NatSCA2014 Meeting

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Day three of SPNHC2014 kicked off with the NatSCA conference! Clare Brown introduced the session with a brief account of the importance of NatSCA. Many non-specialist museums do not have access to staff with an understanding of science, and so NatSCA can provide support to these institutions as well as demonstrate the importance of advocating collections and the many different uses that can be made of them.

The NatSCA conference continued with a series of (strictly!) five minute presentations.

Henry McGhie, of the Manchester Museum, discussed how natural history collections are under-appreciated and underused, and how an informal partnership of museums in the North West has formed in order to aid advocacy.

Rob Huxley, Natural History Museum, London, showed that museums could be used much more by a range people, such as molecular biochemists, vets, geneticists or medical practitioners. We need to think of strategies for reaching out to many more people that could make use of the collections.

David Schnidel from the NMNH Smithsonian Institution suggested we focus on what others might want from the collections, and the new uses that could be discovered for data. Scientific collections could hold answers for research in a range of fields such as the food shortage crisis, disease research and climate change. In addition to scientific research, collections could be used for inspiration for artists, fashion designers, or even architects. With millions of objects across the UK, the opportunities for expanding the usage of our collections could be endless!

Glenn Roadley, Natural Science Curatorial Trainee

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Data-less Natural Science Specimens are Useless to Science. Aren’t they?

Here we have Clare Brown, of the Leeds Museum, telling us about some devilishly exciting research:

Tasmanian Devil specimens in UK museums, with no data whatsoever, have been used in cutting edge research on devil facial tumour disease as part of the effort to save these incredible animals.
Data – when and where a specimen was collected – is vital to the usefulness of natural science collections. It is crucial for so many aspects of research that these collections are commonly used for: climate change work; biodiversity research; distribution mapping etc.
Specimens without data are usually much more problematic. At Leeds we have thousands of objects that don’t have any record of where they came from or when they were collected. The information has either been lost or never noted down in the first place. Even our scrappiest, most moth-eaten bits of taxidermy are elevated above the rest of the collection if they have associated data.
I was therefore delighted when Jeremy Austin at the University of Adelaide asked whether we had any Tasmanian Devil Sarcophilus harrisii material collected in the last 200 years. Crucially, he didn’t need an exact date or location – just a two century timespan. We’d been collecting since 1821.
Leeds, a large, rich, Victorian industrial city, spent most of the 19th century collecting scientific material from around the world. We had a ‘purveyor of Australian wildlife’ and acquired, amongst other things, two Devil mounts and a skeleton. The specimens were duly sampled and sent to Australia.

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The study, also using specimens from Oxford, looked at genetic diversity in a group of molecules in cell membrane proteins called the ‘major histocompatibility complex’. Low diversity in this complex has been linked to the emergence and spread of devil facial tumour disease. The team needed samples of historical and ancient Devil DNA to see how diverse the populations were before European settlement and after. The article, published in Biology Letters, can be read here.

This is a great example of how natural science specimens, whatever their ‘data status’, can contribute to scientific research at the forefront of species conservation.

Advocacy for Collections – SPNHC2014 Day Three

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Today we have a write-up by Rachel Jennings of the Horniman Museum, London:

The need to advocate for natural history collections, so that those making decisions about the future of museums can understand their importance, has been a recurring theme over the last few years – and SPNHC 2014 was no exception. The Thursday morning session, chaired by NatSCA, focused on this very topic. Ben Garrod, in his keynote speech, stated that we need to inspire our visitors so that they become our advocates. Luanne Meehitiya of Birmingham Museums argued that advocacy must start with basic concepts, such as ‘What is natural history?’, because, while it is obvious to us, our visitors and colleagues may have a very different idea.

While the afternoon sessions on collections were not overtly advocacy-themed, I still found the thread running through, with many examples of the importance of natural history collections. Bethany Abrahamson of the University of New Mexico (UNM) showed, by looking at publication records, that natural history collections are supporting a much wider range of research now than ever before. J. Tomasz Giermakowski, also of UNM, demonstrated that historic collections data can be used to target hotspots for current conservation efforts. Tiffany Adrain of the University of Iowa showed that historical research can reveal the importance and improve the future research potential of forgotten specimens.

While advocacy is not a new topic, this year I left the conference feeling that there was a new optimism, as colleagues from all over the world came together to share their vision for the future of natural history collections.

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Photo by Judith C. Price

NatSCA Digital Digest

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: The Importance of Natural Sciences

Jack Ashby, Manager of the Grant Museum

Synopsis

Comparing attitudes across the Atlantic

The importance of natural sciences

2. Training: Interpretation Planning

Friday 18th July, Museum of London

Synopsis

‘Nick Poole from Collections Trust will be delivering an add on session from 1-1.30pm on digitisation and the potential of using your collections on line through various platforms’.

Interpretation Planning

3. Museum and Heritage Awards

Advisor- the team behind the M and H show and awards

Synopsis

A review of this year’s award winning projects

Museum and Heritage Awards

Compiled by Emma-Louise Nicholls, NatSCA Blog Editor

NatSCA Digital Digest

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: Six Questions for a Geological Curator

Geological Curators’ Group

Synopsis

‘This is the first post in our series where we ask geological curators around the country a series of questions that allow them to advocate the collections in their charge. This post is kindly provided by Dean Lomax who is Contract Assistant Curator of Palaeontology at the Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery, working on the CIRCA Project which is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. He is the author of two books, Fossils of the Whitby Coast and Dinosaurs of the British Isles.’

Six Questions for a Geological Curator

2. Article: EU Makes it Easier to Return Looted Cultural Objects

Patrick Steel, Museums Association

Synopsis

‘The European Parliament has approved changes to a directive aimed at helping EU countries organise the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from one member state to another. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) believes will see a rise in requests for returns across the EU as a result’

EU Makes it Easier to Return Looted Cultural Objects

3. Job Vacancy: Curatorial Assistant

The Grant Museum of Zoology, Department of Public and Cultural Engagement

Synopsis

‘Full time until July 2015, thereafter it will be part time, 18.25 hours per week, 50% FTE, unless further funding is identified.

The curatorial assistant post will be based primarily in the Grant Museum of Zoology, one of the foremost zoology museums in the UK, with a growing reputation for innovative and experimental work.

The job will involve working closely with the collections to make them accessible to UCL and external audiences and improve their storage, documentation and use; as well as contributing to the museum’s public programmes and online activities. Details can be found on the UCL jobs page.

Deadline: 15th June. For information about the post please contact the Museum Manager, Jack Ashby – j.ashby@ucl.ac.uk  and for information about the application procedure contact UCL Museums’ Administrator Lauren Sadler – l.sadler@ucl.ac.uk.’

Curatorial Assistant Job Vacancy

Compiled by Emma-Louise Nicholls, NatSCA Blog Editor