Tag Archives for practical tips

NatSCA Digital Digest – January 2023

Compiled by Claire Dean, Project Curator, Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery.

Welcome to the January 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

The NatSCA annual conference and AGM will be held at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th April 2023. The focus this year is So how do we actually do all this? Hopeful futures and turning theory into practice for big issues in natural history collections.

We are looking for 20-minute presentations, 5-minute lightning talks, and posters. Work can be presented in-person or digitally. All the details you need are here. The deadline for submission is 5pm GMT Monday 30th January.

Abstract submissions are also now open for SPNHC 2023. The 38th Annual Meeting of The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections is being held in San Francisco, California 28 May – 2 June 2023. Full details here.

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Listening and learning: Reflections on the Second Workshop of the People and Plants Project

Written by Fiona Roberts. Collaborative ESRC PhD student, Cardiff University and Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales Decolonising biocultural curation of South Asian medicinal plants.

Monday 7th November, National Museums Collections Centre

In early November, a group of academics, researchers, curators, artists and knowledge holders gathered at Edinburgh’s National Museums Collections Centre. The second workshop of the year-long AHRC-funded ‘People and Plants’ project focused on ‘reactivating ethnobotanical collections as material archives of Indigenous ecological knowledge.’

During the object handling session (Photo by Dr Ali Clark, National Museums Scotland)

The People and Plants Project

Led by National Museums Scotland, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Powell-Cotton Museum, the project investigates current debates on decolonising museum practices, including the interplay between natural history and ethnography collections, creating a conversation about these among varied experts.

The project’s previous workshop, held at the Powell-Cotton Museum in March 2022, brought together Somali knowledge holders from UK diasporic communities and was run in partnership with the University of Kent’s School of Anthropology and Conservation and the NOMAD project, which engages Somali communities in heritage projects. To read more, see this previous blogpost, and view workshop talks on YouTube [People and Plants – YouTube].

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NatSCA Digital Digest – December 2022

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

Welcome to the December 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

Catch up: Museum Action for Climate Empowerment Webinars

The most recent webinar from the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) is now available to watch online if you were unable to make it to the live webinar in November. Henry McGhie or Curating Tomorrow, and NEMO Policy Officer Elizabeth Wilde dig into sustainability insights for the sector, key ways that museums can meaningfully contribute to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and explores a new guide for how museums can measure and report greenhouse gas emissions. All previous webinars can also be found over on the NEMO YouTube channel.

Link to latest webinar: https://www.ne-mo.org/training/nemo-webinars.html

Link to NEMO YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@nemo-networkofeuropeanmuse7452

Registration Open for Field Studied Council January Courses

You can now register for upcoming natural history courses hosted by the Field Studies Council. January workshops include: an introduction to bee conservation, an exploration of botanical folklore, and courses on marine mammal and marine invertebrate biology and ecology. Many are hosted online with FSC Virtual, and costs vary.

Link to upcoming courses: https://www.field-studies-council.org/courses-and-experiences/natural-history-courses/

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NatSCA Digital Digest – October 2022

Compiled by Glenn Roadley, NatSCA Committee Member, Curator of Natural Science at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery.

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 really 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

COP27 and Action for Climate Empowerment
COP27 will be happening in Egypt, in November, as the international meeting of governments to progress climate action. The main programme for the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that relates to the work of museums was already adopted at COP26, in Glasgow. This is called the Glasgow Work Programme on Action for Climate Empowerment and runs from 2021-31. It covers the public-facing aspect of the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement, relating to education, training, public awareness, access to information, public participation and international co-operation on climate change matters. The new programme also sets out a framework for stronger climate action, through effective policies, co-ordinated action, sharing tools and support, and more effective monitoring and communication of climate actions. The new programme specifically points out the important role of a range of sectors, including museums, educational and cultural institutions. Climate action is not just for COP, nor is it just for governments, and the new programme is both a recognition and an invitation for sectors to play their part.

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A Foot In The Door – Finding Collections Work As A Trailing Spouse In A Foreign Country

Written by Caroline Grounds, Freelance Zoological Collections Assistant, Musée national d’histoire naturelle, Luxembourg.

I arrived in Luxembourg 8 years ago when my husband accepted a job offer here, not knowing much about the tiny country (“where exactly is Luxembourg?”), and with a new baby in tow.

I had become accustomed to the trailing expat spouse role, so I was happy for a new adventure, though the hardest part about moving, especially to a country where you don’t speak the language, is finding your niche in which you can carve out something of your own.

As a former Biology teacher, most of my previous museum experience was in science education, as a volunteer at the NHM in London, and the George C. Page museum (La Brea Tar Pits) in Los Angeles, and I was keen to get involved in the Luxembourg Natural History Museum in any way, shape or form. Something about being around the wonders of nature, whether outside or housed in a building, is inspiring to me and, surrounded by like-minded people, where I truly feel like I’m supposed to be.

Not speaking any of the official local languages however (Luxembourgish, German and French), I quickly found that it would be difficult to find work, even on a voluntary basis as I had before. I submitted my CV to the museum anyway, and endured a rather painful phone call in very bad schoolgirl French (mine, not theirs!), which, much to my amazement, led to one of the researchers contacting me for help proofreading his research papers, which were being published in English. That schoolgirl French came in useful after all!

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