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NatSCA Digital Digest

Three-toed sloth (C) Horniman Museum and Gardens

Three-toed sloth (C) Horniman Museum and Gardens

The October NatSCA Digital Digest is here already, where does the time go?

What’s New to Read?

Dana Andrew recently went to Jamaica to track down the original location of some museum specimens, and has reported back to ICOM. She was funded by a WIRP international travel grant, and you can read about her blustery adventures, so far, here.

Eighty full years of mourning have now taken place for the Thylacine, since it was deliberately driven to extinction in 1936. Thylacine expert, Jack Ashby, makes sure it’s not forgotten and talks about how it feels to be in the area where it happened in a tribute blog here.
What’s New to See?

On the 19th October the Grant Museum of Zoology will bring you some sex, some creativity, and some trickery. A new exhibition looks at the colourful world of reproduction in nature.

Two days later, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition opens at the Natural History Museum on the 21st October. Always a crowd pleaser, I’ve had some sneak peeks which prove this year will be no different.

And just one day after that, the Horniman Museum will also be ready to entertain with a new exhibition. This one, called Memorial: A Tribute to Taxidermy, exhibits historic Horniman Museum taxidermy specimens alongside Jazmine’s modern day interpretations. Elegant and beautiful, this exhibition is a must-see, and comes complete with a fascinating timelapse film of how she did it.
What to do with your Sawfish

If you have any sawfish rostrums in your collection, particularly if they have locality data, there is something important you really need to do! The Sawfish Conservation Society, the Shark Trust, and The Deep (aquarium) have begun a joint venture to research museum specimens and data with the aim to protect wild populations. If you can help, please get in touch with any of the aforementioned lovely people, and to thank you for your efforts, your institution will be acknowledged in any scientific papers that get published. Double win.

Sawfish rostra (Wikimedia Commons)

Sawfish rostra (Wikimedia Commons)

NatSCA Digital Digest

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Jobs and Traineeships

If, like many, your world will never be the same again once Dippy the Diplodocus retires from his position adorning the entrance hall to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, you can at least help secure him a happy future by going for the job of Corporate Partnerships Manager- Dippy the Dinosaur on Tour at the NHM. The deadline is the 25th January so there’s still time to affect the life of this semi-retired much loved icon.

If digital engagement is more your thing then the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) are currently looking for a Digital Engagement Specialist. The deadline for this post is also the 25th January, with interviews on the 8th February.

Events and Exhibitions

The London Transport Museum is holding an interesting half day symposium on 7th March 2016 called Contemporary Collecting. The symposium is free and includes an evening reception at the Museum. There are six areas of focus listed on the website, ranging from risks of collecting to acquisitions that ‘are inherently, and/or overtly, political’. Sounds exciting!

Around the Web

The project of digitising the Charles Lyell Fossil Collections is well underway at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The blog (link above) is a fun and interesting read but more importantly, if you have any Charles Lyell specimens in your collection, Sarah Joomun and Eliza Howlett at the OUMNH would love to hear from you.

 

NatSCA Digital Digest

Firstly and most importantly…

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Secondly, everything else…

Jobs and Traineeships

With the period known as the ‘run up to Christmas’ well underway it is slim pickings for new vacancies in natural history. However a number of posts still open in areas such as Norwich, Aberdeen and Sheffield, that have been previously advertised through NatSCA, can still be found here. Deadlines for applications begin early January so perhaps write yours out before you start to suffer from excess-turkey-consumption lethargy.

Events and Exhibitions

Fans of natural history have a great reason to visit the British Museum at the moment thanks to a new temporary exhibition called Scanning Sobek: Mummy of the crocodile god. Open until the 21st February, the exhibition is just inside the main door and is completely free. It couldn’t be easier!

If you are in or able to get to Berlin any time soon, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found is now on display at the Museum für Naturkunde in a special exhibition called Tristan: Berlin bares teeth. Tristan has only been baring his teeth to the public since 17th December 2015 and I for one am going to visit him asap.

Around the Web

There’s a rather festive Underwhelming fossil fish of the month blog, complete with santa hat and palaeofied lyrics to a well known Christmas favourite, over on the Grant Museum of Zoology blog.

Now I’m going to go to sleep (yes I know it’s only 11am) so that Christmas comes sooner. That’s how time works.

!!MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

NatSCA Digital Digest

Chameleon

Jobs and Traineeships

Norfolk Museums Service is offering six 12-month paid traineeships, including one post in natural history. The closing date for applications is 3 January 2016. See here for details.

Curatorial Assistant, Anthropology Audit: Natural History Museum (NHM), London. Six-month collections-based role. Applications close 7 December 2015.

Documentation Officer (job share): Horniman Museum & Gardens, London. 19 hours/week. Applications close 14 December 2015.

Events and Exhibitions

Introduction to Diptera Families. Oxford University Museum of Natural History. A two-day workshop on the ecology and identification of flies.

Gifts for the Gods: Animal Mummies Revealed. Manchester Museum. An exhibition showing how modern science can help explain the ancient practice of animal mummification. Open now until 17 April 2016.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015. Natural History Museum, London. As always, this is a stunningly beautiful exhibition, and well worth seeing. If you can’t make it to London, you can also see it on tour at other museums around the UK.

Collected and Possessed. Horniman Museum & Gardens, London. An exhibition by artist Mark Fairnington, inspired by the collections of the Horniman, NHM, and Wellcome Collection. Open now, until 24 January 2016.

Around the Web

A WNPR podcast looking behind the glass of the taxidermy dioramas the the Peabody Museum.

Who’s digitising what? The New York Times guide to online natural science collections.

In pursuit of plants: The Marianne North Gallery at Kew.

NatSCA Digital Digest

Greater one horned rhino (© E-L Nicholls)

Greater one horned rhino (© E-L Nicholls)

News

Our very own Paolo Viscardi has moved to the inner belly of London to join the team at the Grant Museum of Zoology as their fourteenth Curator. This shift will at some point inevitably create a faunal interchange of curators amongst the natural sciences collections of the world, so keep your ears to the ground future Deputy Keepers of Natural History…

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Last weekend was the Festival of Geology, always a great weekend full of fossils, rocks and geeky conversations. If anyone who went would like to write a short piece for the NatSCA blog, do get in touch via our normal email address blog@natsca.org. We do love a good write up!

Events

If you live near or are visiting Gloucester anytime this month, the previously mentioned 2015 British Wildlife Photography Awards exhibition has been extended until the 29th November. Located at the Nature in Art collection.

Around the Web

As you probably all know, it was the Museums Association Conference and Exhibition last week. I know a few people who attended this year and have heard great things, so if you missed it too and would like to view some highlights, check out the MA’s archive of the event here.

Despite Mark Carnall having left the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL for the heavier-on-dinosaurs but lighter-on-quaggas Oxford University Museum of Natural History, his ever entertaining blog series Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month continues. Well, thank goodness for that. If you’ve not had the delight before, this blog is a shining example of how to use the unused-for-good-reason areas of your collections.