Tag Archives for natural science collections

Taking a ‘Leaf’ of Faith: Managing a Forgotten University Herbarium

Written by Anna Robson, Graduate Intern Archaeology and Bioscience Collections, Durham University.

Background to the Collection

At Durham University, an herbarium of international scope has recently been reawakened revealing unique plant specimens and important stories about the Bioscience Collection as a whole. Over the past 18 months, the Archaeology and Bioscience Curator and Intern have undergone a process of conserving, managing, and researching the ex-teaching Bioscience Collection. Once part of the Bioscience Department’s teaching materials, this collection comprises of skeletal material, antler trophy heads, taxidermy, entomology, oology, a spirit collection and an herbarium.

To give a brief history to the collection, Durham University used to teach Zoology (established 1946) and Botany (established 1932), with Botany in the founding four departments of science in the University. The Department of Botany was spearheaded by Benjamin Millard Griffiths (1886-1942), one of the first readers in Botany who is described as a ‘true scientist’ and ‘inspired great affection’. As scientific advances changed from macro to micro to molecular, Durham’s Biosciences current department is an amalgamation of the former Botany and Zoology departments. Due to this shift, hands-on teaching using herbaria and animal osteological specimens gradually halted.

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NatSCA Digital Digest – June 2024

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

Welcome to the June 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

From Collections to Connections, May – November 2024

This Changing Chalk commission/ Natural Trust funded project is a collaborative archival art and environment initiative. Artist Pauline Rutter invites Black and minoritised young people, their families and communities to explore the rich history of flora and fauna across several locations of the Changing Chalk area within the South Downs National Park.

‘From Collections to Connections’ offers opportunities for learning and sharing about collections held at the Booth Museum which relate to the Sussex locations of Mill Hill, Truleigh Hill and Devils Dyke. Through walks, talks and creative interventions, opportunities are provided for exploring the museum collections and their related histories. Individuals will be invited to find their own connections between these elements and their experiences within the natural and museum environments. To find out more, follow this link to the summary outline: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJQh4UYMTeRB_HqsM7EydOmNBLGKYQpb/view

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Making a Green Gallery – A Leeds Story

By Sara Merritt, Audience Development Officer at Leeds Museums & Galleries.

Us: We want to retro-fit a permanent gallery! As sustainably as possible! With £40k! In two months! And we want to keep the space open to visitors!

Them: Umm, are you sure that’s a good…

Us: Great! We’ll get cracking.

2022 saw us undertake the retro-fit of our permanent Life on Earth gallery at Leeds City Museum, with the aim of making it as sustainable as possible. The gallery required an overhaul to meet current visitor expectations, with innovative design ideas and production methods to reflect our greater understanding of climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and Britain’s colonial history.

Our objectives were threefold and carefully considered:

  • To manage and deliver a sustainable retro-fit with the addition of creating a carbon calculator to measure our C02 output
  • To ensure the interpretation was relevant, and that we had a strong idea of our target audience to attract visitors who were already engaged in making climate-positive changes.
  • To identify robust materials and production methods which would stand up to visitors pulling, prodding, and everything in between.

We were used to working with greener materials for temporary exhibitions and knew the implications around material availability, longevity of eco materials, and higher associated costs. We therefore needed to keep the project resource light and put our efforts into the interpretation, rather than dramatic object moves. We took the bones of what we had, large cases and great objects, and retold the story with the emphasis on using our objects to inspire our visitors to live more sustainably.

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NatSCA Digital Digest – April 2024

Compiled by Milo Phillips, Digitisation Co-ordinator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Welcome to the April 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

NatSCA Annual Conference & AGM 2024

Not long now until the 2024 Annual Conference & AGM of the Natural Sciences Collections Association. Trials and Triumphs: sharing practice across the museum sector will be held next week, Thursday 18th and Friday 19th April 2024, in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This practical conference aims to celebrate triumphs and amplify successes in museums, but also highlights pitfalls and lessons learned from situations that didn’t go as planned. 

Find more information, and the programme of talks and events on the event page here.

The Unnatural History Museum

The Unnatural History Museum series of talks brings together museum professionals, creatives and academics across disciplines to platform vital conversations about the museum mediation of the natural world during the sixth mass extinction.

The series unfolds over a series of themed Zoom sessions featuring short presentations, followed by a roundtable discussion. The third session, on “Deep Time”, will feature papers from and discussion with Diana Marsh (University of Maryland), Richard Fallon (Natural History Museum, London), and Shana van Hauwermeiren (Workshop Intangible Heritage).

The talk will be later this month, on Wednesday 24th April at 5pm Irish Standard Time.

Registration is free and more information can be found on the Eventbrite page here.

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The Institute of Biology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico Celebrates its 95th Anniversary

Written by Fernando A. Cervantes and Yolanda Hortelano-Moncada, National Mammal Collection, National Biodiversity Pavilion. Institute of Biology, UNAM. Mexico City, Mexico.

The Instituto de Biología (IB) will celebrate its 95th anniversary on November 9, 2024 and is a dependency of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (Fig. 1). This date coincides with the same time that the Mexican government granted “autonomy” to the then National University of Mexico.  

Fig. 1. Central buildings of the Institute of Biology, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City (Photograph: Institute of Biology, UNAM).

The central buildings of the IB are located in the south of Mexico City, in the area known as Pedregal de San Ángel, which is characterized by a rocky substrate of volcanic origin. Currently, a large part of the IB campus is an ecological reserve that protects the flora, fauna, and fungus of the natural ecosystem of the area, which corresponds to xerophytic scrub (Fig. 2). 

Fig. 2. Xerophytic scrubland growing on volcanic rock in the Ecological Reserve of Pedregal de San Ángel, where the Institute of Biology, UNAM, is located in Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City (Photograph: Dirección General de Comunicación Social, UNAM).
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