Category Archives for Training

Top NatSCA Blogs of 2024

Compiled by Jen Gallichan, NatSCA Blog Editor.

2024 was a great year for the NatSCA blog and we have seen increases in both the number of readers and number of articles submitted. We are now reaching well over 2000 views per month. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed an article. The NatSCA blog is driven solely by your contributions, and it is stands as a testament to all the hard work you are doing. I am pleased to say that the 2025 blog calendar is open for business, so drop me a line if you would like to contribute!

To celebrate all your wonderfulness, I am taking this opportunity to highlight the top 10 most read posts from 2024. This year’s line-up feels more diverse that ever, featuring a coelacanth, live dissections, radiocarbon dating, and fluid collections!

In descending order…

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Thoughts on Working with Natural Sciences Collections (and hoping to continue) in the United Kingdom as an Emerging Conservator.

Written by Anais Ellis, Project Conservator, Nature + Love at the Horniman Museum and Gardens.

Around a year ago I concluded three years of formal training to become a conservator. At the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL) the training is taught in two sequential parts.  First, the MA, Principles of Conservation, grounds an understanding of conservation practice within ethical frameworks and principles. Following this, the MSc, Conservation of Archaeology and Museums, includes a year of developing remedial conservation skills in a lab and a 9-month placement in a museum or adjacent environment. The formative moment during this placement was my first experience working with natural sciences collections. There were fossils to clean, fluid specimens to top-up, and a taxidermy ringed seal with several claws missing that the curator asked to be reconstructed. Now, a year later, having finished studying and having worked consistently with natural sciences collections in the United Kingdom (UK) it feels like a good moment to reflect on these experiences. As hoped, they have been wonderful.

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Conservation Matters in Wales – Christmas Conference 2023

Written by Sebastien Lherondel-Davies, 2nd year BSc student, Swansea University, whilst on placement at National Museum Cardiff and Swansea Museum.

On Wednesday 13th December 2023, conservators and curators from all over Wales gathered in Swansea for the first in-person Conservation Matters Wales Christmas Conference since the pandemic. Conservation Matters Wales is a collaboration between Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries in Wales, and Cardiff University. The event, hosted by the delightful Swansea Museum, was an opportunity for professionals in the museum collections conservation sector to come together and share the wide range of projects they have been working on. The conference provided us with the chance to present our research project on a historic Lepidoptera collection. 

Swansea Museum
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NatSCA Digital Digest – October 2024

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.

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NatSCA Digital Digest – September 2024

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

Welcome to the September 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

GCG 51st Winter Seminar and AGM – Call for Abstracts Now Open

The Geological Curators Group have announced the details for their Winter Seminar Reciprocal Relationships: how can partnerships help us and our collections develop?  and AGM taking place at Oxford University Museum of Natural History 11 – 13th November 2024. The dates include an evening icebreaker, presentations, workshops, AGM, conference dinner and a field trip.

The deadline for abstracts is October 14th 2024. Please follow the link for further details: https://www.geocurator.org/events/180-agm51 .

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