Category Archives for Audiences

NatSCA Digital Digest – January 2024

Compiled by Milo Phillips, Assistant Curator of Entomology, National Museums Scotland.

Welcome to the January edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

Wishing a Happy New Year to all our readers!

Digital Digest is 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

NatSCA 2024 – Submission Reminder

There’s still time to submit for the 2024 NatSCA Annual Conference! The Annual Conference & AGM of the Natural Sciences Collections Association will be held on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th April 2024, in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Papers can be presented in any of several formats: A 20-minute presentation (consisting of a 15-minute talk followed by 5 minutes of Q&A) or a 5-minute lightning talk. Talks can be presented in person or by submission of a pre-recorded presentation, with the option of an in-person or live stream Q&A (via Zoom).

Deadline for submission: 5pm GMT Friday 19th January. More info and submission forms here.

Museums and Galleries History Group 2024 Symposium

A one-day symposium held at the University of Leeds and online. Microhistory aims to direct attention towards marginal(ized) voices and perspectives and emphasizes the agency of the ‘ordinary’. This symposium will explore the relationships between large historical narratives and individual case studies and their use in disrupting established grand historical narratives, countering oversimplification.

The symposium will be held on January 26th. More information and registration here.

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NatSCA Digital Digest – December 2023

Compiled by Olivia Beavers, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at World Museum, National Museums Liverpool.

Welcome to the December edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

This is the last Digest of 2023 – packed full of festive activities and the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences and training opportunities. If you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.

Sector News

NatSCA Conference & AGM 2024 – SAVE THE DATE & CALL FOR PAPERS

The Annual Conference & AGM of the Natural Sciences Collections Association will be held on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th April 2024 in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The first day will include the AGM, presentations, and lightning talks. The second day will include presentations in the morning, followed by gallery and collection tours in the afternoon.

Trials and Triumphs: sharing practice across the museum sector

The #NatSCA2024 conference invites proposals for presentations on a broad range of themes. We seek ideas from the natural history collections community, educators, collaborators, and beyond. We are interested in practical lessons, unique solutions, new collaborations, and to show what has and hasn’t worked with projects.  We are looking for presentations that touch on every aspect of museum operations, including audience engagement, collections management practices, changing laws, social justice, restitution and decolonisation, environmental issues, global challenges, research and academic engagement.

This practical conference aims to celebrate triumphs and amplify successes in museums, but also highlight the pitfalls and lessons learned from situations that didn’t go as planned. We will prioritise papers that focus on sharing ideas, tools, and guidance rather than simply reporting results. We want to make this conference practical and useful, so please try to reflect this in your abstract.

While we have a focus on natural science collections, we recognise that we can learn from others in the wider museum sector, and we welcome submissions from anyone who wishes to share techniques and ideas with broader relevance and application.

Papers can be presented in any of several formats: A 20-minute presentation (consisting of a 15-minute talk followed by 5 minutes of Q&A) or a 5-minute lightning talk. Talks (both lightning and longer) can be presented in person or by submission of a pre-recorded presentation, with the option of an in-person or live stream Q&A (via Zoom).

Deadline for submission: 5pm GMT Friday 19th January. Please email conference@natsca.org with any questions.

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Putting Natural History Museums to Work for Human Rights

Written by Henry McGhie, Curating Tomorrow, henrymcghie@curatingtomorrow.co.uk.

Every year, 10th December is commemorated as International Human Rights Day, the date when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the members of the United Nations. This year is particularly momentous, as it is the 75th anniversary of the Declaration’s adoption. What has this got to do with museums? The original Declaration includes a number of commitments (set out in 30 Articles) that are obviously related to the work of museums: the right to education, the right to information and freedom of expression, the right to take part in public affairs, among others. Museums often focus on one (article 27) that gets summarized as being ‘the right to participate in cultural life’, but that isn’t it’s full or proper title or scope: more correctly, it is that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Note especially the part about sharing in scientific advancement and its benefits: we will come back to this.

Now, the Universal Declaration is not perfect, it is 75 years old after all, and it reflected a world rather different than our world today. Hundreds of millions of people were still under colonial rule. The environment didn’t feature in the Declaration, as human impacts on the environment were not as massive, and not as obvious. Nevertheless, the Declaration has been supplemented by many additional agreements, many of which have a legal standing. However, the necessity of a decent quality environment has been recognized for decades. Indeed, it has been argued that most or possibly all of the 30 rights in the original Universal Declaration rely on a decent quality environment. Sustainable development really got going in the early 1970s, with the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, that recognized that people have a right to a decent quality environment. Fast forward 50 years, to 2022, and that right was finally formally recognized by the United Nations. More recently, the inherent rights of nature have been the subject of court cases and in some cases natural features have been granted rights, which helps protect them and to take polluters to court for environmental damage. 

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NatSCA Digital Digest – October 2023

Compiled by Milo Phillips, Assistant Curator of Entomology for National Museums Scotland.

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

Museum Association Conference 2023: The Power of Museums

There’s still time to register for this years’ Museum Association Conference, being held in Gateshead on 7th-9th November. The conference will explore how we can help our communities flourish by having a positive impact on health and wellbeing, placemaking, economic regeneration and by providing space to reflect on the pressing issues that we face. The cost of living crisis, discrimination and climate change are all having an impact on our communities. What do people need from us in times of upheaval and change? Follow the link to find out about the registration fees and to book your place: https://www.museumsassociation.org/events/conference-2023/

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. 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. Bring your sandwiches and a cuppa and we hope to see you on the day!

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How to Find Ectoparasites on Study Skins and Explore Natural Heritage Shared between Colonial and Provincial Museums

Written by John-James Wilson, Lead Curator of Zoology at World Museum, National Museums Liverpool & Jing Jing Khoo, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Institute of Infection, Veterinary & Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool.

Selangor Museum was established in Kuala Lumpur by British colonial officials in 1887. A purpose-built museum building, opened in 1907, was designed by Liverpool-born architect Arthur Hubback, but there is a stronger link between Selangor Museum and Liverpool.

Selangor Museum’s early director Herbert Robinson was also born in Liverpool and had worked as an assistant at the Liverpool Museums, now known as World Museum. Selangor Museum wasn’t a large institution, with just three British curators and three museum hunters from Sarawak, one being Charles Ulok. But through the museum’s work, a European knowledge system was imposed onto the local wildlife.

The museum’s work included extensive hunting on the hill and mountains and islands of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. The museum soon ran out of storage space in Kuala Lumpur and specimens were routinely sent to England. Hundreds of specimens were sent to Robinson’s former workplace, World Museum, in 1914.

https://archive.org/embed/from-selangor-museum-to-liverpool

Click link above for 3-minute video about Selangor Museum and its connection to Liverpool made for the Green Representatives Network at Monash University in Selangor.

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