NatSCA Digital Digest

Your weekly round-up of news and events happening in the world of natural sciences

Jobs

Curator, Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL I can tell you from three years of first-hand experience (pseudo-first-hand; as curatorial assistant) that this is the job all curators should be applying for. The Grant Museum of Zoology is an amazing place to work and in this role I know you will have the opportunity to spread your curatorial wings and make a real difference in the natural history sector. The kind of job where you don’t mind getting up in the morning. Closing date for applications is 3rd August. Good luck!

If only for the superb job title, anyone with experience of learning programmes for families and children with ASC (Autistic Spectrum Condition) should definitely take a look at the current vacancy for the Dawnosaurs Programme Co-ordinator at the Natural History Museum. This looks like an amazing opportunity for the right person. The closing date for applications is the 22nd July.

See the job page of the NatSCA website for more exciting opportunities.

News

The next Museums Association exhibition and conference is due to take place on 5th and 6th November, in Birmingham. There is still time to register as an early bird who gets the cheaper worm rates. Early bird registration ends on the 7th August, click here for more.

Around the Web

Sun bear, fox, hippo or pangolin. What tickles your natural history bones the most? Choose your favourite to be the new museum mascot for Derby Museum and Art Gallery! If you are on Twitter, you can whip up some support for the sun bear, errr, I mean, your favourite using: @DMNature and @derbymuseums. The winning specimen will be announced on the 7th August. I’ve already chosen mine, can you guess what it is…?

The Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs have been working up a storm of support lately, with ongoing events at the park complemented by a very dynamic talk at the Grant Museum by the master of science comedy- Prof Joe Cain, from UCL. These incredible statues are a vivid reminder of the evolution our concept of dinosaur appearances has gone through. They are also an important part of our British cultural heritage, that helped shape the palaeontological world in the mid 1800s. Find out more about these iconic statues that are in desperate need of conservation on the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs website.

Museums Unleashed: Using traditional and social media to reach audiences, build communities, and transform hearts and minds

This year’s NatSCA conference at Bristol’s M Shed brilliantly championed the ways in which TV, storytelling, and social media can engage and inspire the public with fantastic natural history content, and make museum collections come alive. Wendy Darke, head of the BBC Natural History Unit, opened the conference with a moving presentation on the enduring power of the BBC Natural History Unit to produce jaw-dropping films that stir our hearts, like Life Story and Frozen Planet, versus shows like the Lost Land series that appeal to those of us who want to understand more about nature and expand our minds.

The equally inspiring Sara Zeidler, Social Media Manager at BBC Earth, discussed how the team have built an impressive global community of 4.85 million fans across six social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The popularity of the Natural History Unit filming in all corners of the globe has allowed the public to connect to the researchers and filmmakers, places and wildlife being filmed in real time through #EarthCapture and #Earthonlocation. Sara emphasised that nature content that is positive, surprising,and emotional provides the best hooks for audiences.

As an archaeologist who is passionate about geology, Prof. Iain Stewart is one of my heroes of popular science. A passionate academic, like Prof. Alice Roberts, he has successfully communicated the stories of geoscience for over a decade, from Earth: The Power of the Planet, to the more recent Rise of the Continents. In his talk, ‘50 Shades of Grey’, he explained that geology works on TV because it deals with ‘Big Histories’ that ultimately help tell our human story. Iain passionately believes in science for society, and raised the important question of how to maintain meaningful public engagement with increasingly disparate audiences in a world where the Internet has overtaken TV as the main source for the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

Prof. Iain Stewart explains the continuum of science programming. (Image: Anthony Roach)

Iain’s research into audiences explained that many of us fanboys and fangirls are of course continually engaged in science programmes, events, and activities. We also see the benefits of science in solving societal issues. But Iain raised the strong need to find new ways to reach those who are disengaged in science (either because they lack interest, do not see the relevance in their lives, or perhaps just don’t make the time for science), and move away from ‘disasters and dinosaurs’ TV.

The second half of the conference displayed the shared passion of museum professionals who were inspired by their collections and wanted to ‘be where their audiences were’. @oisinthedeer at Warwickshire Museum was a superb example of how museum mascots can be used as a springboard for a museum looking outwards to its audiences. The composite Irish Deer skeleton has been at the centre of a successful twitter campaign that has given the museum a voice to promote its collections, events, and activities, and ‘build the buzz’.

I enjoyed hearing from Kate Mortimer about the National Museum of Wales’ joined up approach to social media to improve the visibility of their amazing collections. The use of ‘tweet guides’ has allowed colleagues across the museum to co-ordinate the scheduling of tweets, such as #MolluscMonday and blog posts about specimens. My personal favourite being that of the conservation of Arthur the Arthropleura. Kate explained the added longevity that Storify brings to their social media platforms through curating particular tweets and posts. This strategy has enabled colleagues to build deeper public engagement with their diverse and beautiful collections.

Arthur the Arthropleura visits the impressionists (Image source: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/blog/2014-11-11/The-Adventures-of-Arthur-the-Arthropleura-/)

My overall favourite for the innovative use of social media to engage audiences with collections projects was ‘Objects, Meet World!’ by the Horniman Museum and Gardens. Rachel Jennings explained the benefits of Tumblr as a micro-blogging platform to upload multimedia object content during the Horniman’s major review of their anthropology collections. The platform is quick and easy to use, and allows users to put together an interesting story about the object in a few sentences. As a result of their sterling work, the site has generated interest world-wide, gaining a whopping 39,000 followers in under three years. And if you’re a fan of sticks, just check out their ‘Stick of the Week’.

Thanks to Bristol Museums and NatSCA for organising a brilliant conference and set of collections tours, and I look forward to seeing what museums will unleash next year!

Anthony Roach, NHM

Handle with care: bringing museum egg collections to life

This post is another in our series of presentation write-ups from the 2015 NatSCA Conference, Museums Unleashed!

How can we bring museum egg collections to life?

Egg collecting is now illegal in the UK and has been for many years. Possibly because of the legal situation, and the social stigma understandably attached to egg collecting today, museums can be reluctant to publicise their egg collections, even though they are entitled to do so. For example, out of the thousands of eggs held by Glasgow Museums, only a handful are currently on public display, which is a pity as they are beautiful and fascinating objects.

These issues form the basis of my PhD, which is a Collaborative Doctoral Award with Glasgow Museums and the Geography Department at the University of Glasgow. I have been researching the cultural and social aspects of egg collecting (also known as ‘oology’), which was a very popular pastime among both adults and children from the Victorian era well into the twentieth century. I have been researching collectors’ diaries held by Glasgow Museums, and also investigating the wider world of British egg collecting via old egg collecting magazines. This material has revealed some of the people, places, and practices of egg-collecting, which could provide new possibilities for communicating the stories of the birds’ eggs held by Glasgow Museums.

A selection of egg collectors’ notebooks and diaries

Egg-collecting interconnections

One of the most striking aspects of this research has been the interconnectedness of the British egg-collecting world. These connections can take various different forms. For example, egg collections have been donated to Glasgow Museums by individual collectors who knew each other, such as Captain Donald Cross and Peter Hay, who both lived in Ayrshire in the 1940s, where Cross was a farmer and Hay was a schoolboy. Cross shared his collecting knowledge with Hay, and sometimes even gave him eggs to add to his collection.

Eggs taken by a collector called E. S. Steward over 100 years ago have arrived at Glasgow Museums by two very different routes. Some were given by Steward to his friend Robert Arbuthnott, whose son donated his collection in 1967. More recently, in 2014, we received an egg collection confiscated by police after a collector was convicted of trading in eggs, some of which were very old. A few of these eggs were also taken by Steward, and must have passed through various different intermediate collections, along convoluted geographical journeys, before arriving at Glasgow Museums.

Eggs taken by another collector have ended up at different museums. On National Handwriting Day in January, the Natural History Museum’s brilliant oology Twitter feed featured a beautifully scribed red-legged cormorant egg from a collector called John MacNaught Campbell. He was the second Natural History curator at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, and one of the earliest egg collectors to visit South America. Glasgow Museums also have some of his eggs, including this Antarctic goose set collected just three days after the Natural History Museum’s egg, on 3 December 1871.

Clutch of Antarctic goose eggs collected by J. M. Campbell in 1871

Telling the interconnecting stories of these collectors, and others, could be a way of showing the human side of egg collecting, while being careful not to encourage the practice today. This could be via traditional media, such as museum exhibitions, online catalogues, or using social media.

Finally, a request: I’m keen to trace any other eggs that were collected by ES Steward, as I’d like to see how widely his collection has been dispersed. If any of you know of any of his eggs in your collections, I’d be very interested to hear from you, at e.cole.1@research.gla.ac.uk.

Edward Cole

PhD student, University of Glasgow/Glasgow Museums

NatSCA Digital Digest

Your weekly round-up of news and events happening in the world of natural sciences

Events

12th-14th October: Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities: Exploring new digital destinations for heritage and academia at The Imperial War Museum North, Manchester. Free conference exploring the use of digital, in museums environments.

22nd July: Digital vs. Analogue at Oxford University Museum of Natural History. One day conference looking at four themes: Tactile Engagement, Story Telling, Families and Schools, and Digital Displays.

8th September: Osteology Day at University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. A one day hands-on workshop covering aspects of osteology such as bone cleaning, rearticulation, restoration, identification and preparation.

News

The Palaeontological Association is advertising for a new Executive Officer, after the sad news of Tim Palmer’s retirement. Closing date for applications is 21st August 2015.

Did you know that Dubai Aquarium in the UAE has the world’s largest single piece of acrylic. It is pretty hefty at an impressive 70 cm thick, but it is not always with the most reliable seals, as they found out in 2010…

Around the Web

What do you do with a dead fish? Check out this blog for a unique idea: Printing and Reanimating the Dead.

**JURASSIC WORLD IS OUT** And smashing Box Office records. Of course. This review is great, but if you haven’t seen the film yet (firstly- why not? and secondly…) it contains spoilers!

Got a submission for the blog or Digital Digest? Email us at blog@natsca.org

Leicestershire Fashion in Detail: Using social media to engage new audiences with museum collections

This post is another in our series of presentation write-ups from the 2015 NatSCA Conference, Museums Unleashed!

The Animal Kingdom

Why?

Leicestershire Fashion in Detail was part of a larger project called Click; Connect; Curate; Create. Funded by Arts Council England as part of their Renaissance Strategic Support Fund, we wanted to find out how we could use ‘digital’ (whether that be technology or content creation) to increase engagement with our sites and collections. Fashion in detail was one a number of pilot projects including 3D scanning, augmented reality and wearable tech and digital storytelling.

What did we do?

For the purposes of this project we decided to utilise a number of existing images that we had of items from the costume collection. These images are close-up photographs of objects, ranging from menswear to accessories, womenswear to shoes, dating from the late 18th century to the present day. We commissioned dress historian Clare Bowyer to curate these images into a series of themes, and to write narrative for each image and each theme.

Why publish on social media and not an online collection resource?
We were going to use our collections online website but unfortunately this had to be taken down. We did have a picture library that had just been launched but, as its primary purpose was income generation, we didn’t want to distort its purpose by uploading images that we weren’t looking to sell.

As the aim of the project was to encourage engagement with collections we thought, ‘Instead of expecting audiences to come to us, why not go to them?’, and put our content on the platforms they use.

We settled on Tumblr, after considering a number of other image based platforms (including Pinterest and Flickr), as it works well with images and has a large fashion-based following.

Net overdress, c1910. Image of lace detail

What happened?

Since we began posting in October 2014, we have:

posted 191 images
received 949 ‘notes’ (these are interactions with the content in the form of likes and reblogs)
had 782 users interact with our content
gained 134 followers (and counting)

This is an average post engagement rate of 495.3%. In comparison to our picture library, our download rate is 0.98% and our average engagement rate on Pinterest is 1.47%.

Union metrics

Where relevant we would also link back to the collection if it was on our picture library, and as a result our social media referrals increased, not just from our own blogs but from other peoples’ too; 20% of social media referrals to our picture library are from Tumblr.

What did we learn?

1. Tag, tag, tag
Fundamentally with all social media, it’s about being discoverable, and for Tumblr it’s about using the right tags so that users can find your content and then hopefully reblog or like your posts. Knowing the right tags to use is down to a process of trial and error, but descriptive tags work best. Do your own research on what you think are popular tags, then look at what other tags have been used for that post and use them for your own.

Top Tags

2. Social media is about engagement, not broadcasting
The purpose of social media is to engage with audiences, not to just broadcast about what’s going on. It was something that was picked up in our development of a social media strategy. The strongest recommendation from that was to move away from broadcasting to engaging with our audiences; telling people about our collections was a perfect way to do this.

3. Experimentation is key
As with tagging, a lot of what makes good content is trial and error. Try something, see if it works, and if it doesn’t, look at why and try it again. If it does work, look at why it did and see if you can replicate it. We saw that images of our corsets were gaining the most engagement, so we have decided to create a Tumblr about our Symington corset collection.

4. Digital vs Physical
Our biggest learning outcome is that a digital visitor isn’t better or worse than a physical visitor; they are just different types of visitor. We have people from all over the world engaging with our collections who might not have found out about them if it wasn’t for Tumblr. They may never visit us in person, but at least they know we exist, and we have made our collections accessible to them and in a way that allows them to truly engage.

Session Geography – Google analytics

5. Naming your files
I didn’t mention this in my presentation, but the importance of a digital asset management strategy is key. Only some of the images used were labelled according to the garment they were from so I had to spend a month in the ‘Frock Box’ trying to identify the item from the image and updating the metadata accordingly. Whilst I relished my time exploring the collection, renaming all of the images was a pain.

What next?

Leicestershire Fashion in Detail has been such a success to us that we want to explore how we can develop it further. In regards to the overarching project CCCC, we are undertaking an evaluation and visioning exercise to see how we might be able to embed the learning from the project into the strategic delivery of the service.

NatSCA

Natural Science Collections Association

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