NatSCA Digital Digest – May 2024

Compiled by Ellie Clark, Collections Moves Team Leader at the Natural History Museum.

Welcome to the May 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

Registration is now open for the 13th European Bird Curators Meeting, October 2024, in Liverpool.

The European Bird Curators Meetings aim to promote cooperation, dissemination of best practices and new techniques in the curation, management, and use of bird collections. Presenters in the scientific programme often include curators, collection managers, museum historians and ornithological researchers. These are friendly meetings and anyone with an interest is welcome to join us.

The meeting will include plenary and submitted presentations, discussion sessions, collections tour, conference dinner (optional – Tuesday 29th October) and field excursion (optional – Thursday 31st October). 

Please follow the ‘Tickets available here’ link from the event webpage to register. They have single day registration options and have kept costs as low as possible to encourage attendance by local natural history curators. 

If you have any questions, please email vertebratezoology@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk.

SPPC 2024 – Call for Abstracts

The Symposium on Palaeontological Preparation and Conservation is accepting submissions regarding work on all types of geological collections (not just palaeontology), for their upcoming conference.

Contact Lu Allington-Jones, Principal Conservator at the Conservation Centre, Natural History Museum London, for more information.

Registration is open for SHNH International Summer Meeting.

‘The Palette of Nature’: SHNH International Summer Meeting will be held at National Museum Cardiff, Thursday 13 – Friday 14 June 2024, with visits on Friday afternoon 14 June.

This two-day international meeting will explore the use and importance of colour within the history of natural history. For centuries, the colours of the natural world have enticed and enthralled observers and led them to develop various means by which to convey this aspect of nature. The aesthetic appeal of certain colours of gemstones or of particular dyes and pigments derived from plants and minerals is apparent in many cultures.

More information can be found here.

Megalosaurus Appeal: Is our Dinosaur Hiding in your Family Album?

2024 is the 200th anniversary of the naming of the first dinosaur – Megalosaurus! The type specimens are held in the collections at Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH), where they have been part of Oxford University collections since Buckland first described them in his 1824 paper “Notice on the Megalosaurus or great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield”. These type specimens include the iconic jawbone, recognised around the world by dinosaur researchers and enthusiasts alike.

OUMNH are working on a project to fill in some archival gaps in the timeline of Megalosaurus fossils on display. They are therefore appealing to the public for any photographs taken of these fossils at the Museum, any time before 1990.

If you (or you know of anyone who may have) visited OUMNH during the 1900s (or even 1800s!), they would be grateful if you could seek out and dust off the old photo albums and look for images of the Museum’s fossil dinosaur displays.

They would be grateful if photos could be digitised and sent to library@oum.ox.ac.uk, however, the quality is not important (a quick and easy digital photo taken of your physical photo is fine, for example), so long as the image is clear. If digitisation is not possible, please do get in touch with them so they can try and facilitate another way.

They won’t ask you to donate your images but may request permission to use and/or store a digital copy, if appropriate. Closing date for submissions is 14th June 2024.

Fine print: OUMNH does not assume copyright or permission for use of any images sent to us. If a photograph is of particular interest, OUMNH will contact you to request permission to use and/or store the image/s, but you are not under obligation to do so. No financial reward is offered.

NatSCA Lunchtime Chats

The new lunchtime chats are for members only and run on the last Thursday of every month.

This series is supposed to be informal, no fancy equipment is needed, it will be put out over the NatSCA Zoom platform and there is no fixed format. For those who want to take part please email training@natsca.org to put forward your idea. All members will have received a link to join via Zoom (the same link works for all sessions) – if you haven’t, get in touch with membership@natsca.org

Where to Visit

Mansfield Museum has opened a new permanent gallery: A World of Birds

The new gallery includes over 600 birds of nearly 500 species, including spectacular 19th/early 20th century display cases of birds from various parts of the world; historically important specimens including several ‘firsts’ for Britain (Harlequin Duck and Egyptian Nightjar); and a number of ‘albinos’ from a collection of abnormally coloured birds. The gallery aims to connect the Museum’s historic collections with contemporary environmental challenges and public interest in the environment. The gallery was made possible with funding from ACE Unlocking Collections fund, and the Museum’s NPO funding.

Planet Ocean exhibition at The Box, Plymouth

Plymouth is ‘Britain’s Ocean City’ and we are all part of one connected ocean. Come and immerse yourselves in an exhibition that explores pivotal moments in our past and present relationship with the sea. The exhibition uses the overarching themes of plankton, pollution, people and planet to share facts, key findings, objects and stories; inspiring hope in the face of the climate crisis and empowering everyone who visits to become ocean advocates.

Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am-5pm and bank holidays. Admission is free. No need to book. For more information check out the web page.

What to Read

We have a number of fabulous articles on the Blog, including:

Feeling Older than Your Age? The Importance of Museum Collections for Radiocarbon Dating, and a Request for Collections containing Bivalves Collected Before 1950 from the UK written by Rachel Wood, explores the importance of radiocarbon dating in museums and makes a call out for bivalve specimens.

Thinking of ways to explore the historical stories locked in your collections? Check out Trip to Another World – Digitalising and Decolonising Thomas Drummond’s ‘Musci Americani’ by Su Liu.

Where to Work

Kew is advertising for a Microscope Slide Digitisation Officer, closing date May 19th.

The University of the West Indies Zoology Museum is looking for a Curator, closing date May 26th. Find more details here.

Before You Go…

If you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest please drop an email to blog@natsca.org. Similarly, if you have something to say about a current topic, or perhaps you want to tell us what you’ve been working on, we welcome new blog articles so please drop Jen an email if you have anything you would like to submit.

Feeling Older than Your Age? The Importance of Museum Collections for Radiocarbon Dating, and a Request for Collections containing Bivalves Collected Before 1950 from the UK

Written by Rachel Wood, Associate Professor, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

Radiocarbon dating is routinely used to work out the age of archaeological and palaeontological sites, and often pops up in news articles and TV dramas. But some substantial problems remain. One of these is the calibration process, which allows us to convert the ratio of 14C (“radiocarbon”) and 12C (the common stable form of carbon) to an age estimate. This is particularly challenging when we are trying to date marine shells or any animal that has eaten food from the marine system. This means that it can be difficult for us to get an accurate age for a sample that should be straightforward – for example, the skeleton of Medieval person or a Mesolithic dog.

The Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit is starting a project looking for samples of marine shells to help resolve this problem (Fig. 1). Natural history collections in museums are key to its success, and we would be very grateful to hear if anyone has a collection of pre-1950 marine bivalve shells.

Figure 1. Marine bivalves, suitable for helping us to calibrate radiocarbon dates. Please let us know if you have similar material that can be analysed by sampling a small strip from the edge. (Photo Peter Ditchfield, Courtesy Oxford University Museum of Natural History)

The Problem

At school, we are taught that radiocarbon dating works because radiocarbon decays radioactively at a known rate. By comparing the amount of 14C to a stable form of carbon called 12C, we can work out the age of a sample (Fig. 2). This is true, but only partially so because the starting 14C:12C varies. To get around this problem, we need to calibrate radiocarbon dates. Most 14C is produced in the upper atmosphere, and is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis and then passed through the food chain. This means, that if someone is eating terrestrial food – they will have a similar 14C:12C ratio in their bodies as in the atmosphere.

Continue reading →

Trip to Another World – Digitalising and Decolonising Thomas Drummond’s ‘Musci Americani’.

Written by Su Liu, BA English Language and Literature student at the University of Sheffield, formerly summer intern (2023) at Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd – National Museum Cardiff.

Thomas Drummond, a Scottish naturalist, witnessed the tragedy of his accompanying Native American family – the Iroquois hunters had just lost their beloved and a newborn in the severe winter of Saskatchewan, Canada. Yet their journey had to be continued to collect the 286 specimens in Drummond’s Musci Americani, one of the richest collections of North American mosses.

‘…the whole of the continent of North America has not been known to possess so many Mosses as Mr. Drummond has detected in this single journey.’ – Sir William J. Hooker (1830)

Above is a real event in Drummond’s Sketch of a Journey to the Rocky Mountains and to the Columbia River in North America, which records his excursions during Franklin’s second land expedition. It has been adapted into an interactive digital narrative, Snow, Bonfires and Mosses, in which the reader engages with a combination of novel, visualisations, sound effects and choice-making. Choice-making allows the reader to experience different narratives and explore possibilities amid ambiguities in history.

This browser game is accessible on most devices and comes with an ‘encyclopaedia’ that includes a selection of Drummond’s moss specimens and external links to the biographies of all historical characters.

Figure 1. Representation of Sphagnum acutifolium (image courtesy of Amgueddfa Cymru) in the ‘encyclopaedia’ of the narrative, read on a mobile device. ©Su Liu

Lost stories of a distant adventure and forgotten collectors

The story of Drummond’s adventure began in Saskatchewan, 1825, where he parted ways with Franklin’s party and was joined by Iroquois hunters employed by Hudson’s Bay Company, a dominant fur trading company at the time. Their journey near the Rocky Mountains was an underdeveloped version of Man vs. Wild, surrounded by hunger, blizzards, wildlife, and humans – conflict between different tribes continued regardless of the Europeans’ intrusion.

Drummond made excursions whenever he had the opportunity, followed by sleepless nights when he had to treat his specimens before the fur brigade departed. At times, he failed to follow the fur brigade’s pace and consequently much of his work was lost or destroyed. By the time he was brought back to reality from work, he realised that he had been left ‘alone with the Indians’.

Figure 2. In-game concept art of a common vasculum, where Drummond stored flora before drying them at night. ‘When the boats stopped to breakfast, I immediately went on shore with my vasculum, […] which operation generally occupied me till daybreak, when the boats started. I then went on board and slept till the breakfast hour’ – Thomas Drummond, 1830. ©Su Liu

In contrast with Drummond’s objectives, the emphasis of the expeditions had been more on the exploitation of new trading routes. The capitalist powers were eager to establish colonial influence in North America and appeared to have taken local labour for granted, so the natives were not having a great time either. Drummond sometimes found the ‘fickleness’ in them hard to deal with but nevertheless depended on their work.

My colleague and BA history student Harry Pointon has pointed out the conventionalised indifference towards local hunters in the early 19th century, whose contributions are acknowledged in Drummond’s Sketch due to the complexity of his journey, as the natives play essential roles in the naturalist’s survival and are experienced guides to the flora in their natural habitat. With that in mind, my digitalisation of the exsiccatae (numbered collections of dried herbarium specimens with a common theme or title) goes in tandem with decolonising the history of the participants, especially the Native Americans.

Behind the scenes of Snow, Bonfires and Mosses

I had a blast writing, drawing and programming to make historical science approachable without being a bore, especially for slightly older children. It was hard to imagine myself working on two-hundred-year-old mosses as an English student, but I was beyond excited to see moss specimens in a great variety of sizes and colours. With the help of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and my supervisors, I was able to put together a full timeline of events without much barrier to scientific knowledge.

Figure 3. My presentation on the workflow and preview of results, July 2023. ©Su Liu

The historical accounts were quite a fun read. Early modern science writing (approximately from the 17th century onwards) consisting of all sorts of information, from each step of the experiments (even if it results in failure) to personal remarks from the researchers. Unlike contemporary science writing which aims to be brief and impersonal, these accounts are vividly descriptive, and they highlight the presence of all participants: naturalists, hunters and fur traders. Drummond’s Sketch is an excellent resource that conveys his passion for botany and has proven itself practical in helping me construct my storytelling of the specimens. It is also proof of Native American involvement in naturalist excursions.

Apart from the emphasis on Drummond’s excursions and specimens, the narrative also presents parts of Native American culture throughout the characters’ dialogues. Iroquois people, for example, tend to have a strong belief in astrology and female leadership. This will hopefully create a fuller image of the Indigenous collectors, their lives, and the ways they were treated by the Europeans.

As a literature student, my understanding of decolonising history is the liberation of artefacts from hidden archives and unravelling the stories of neglected participants in the most accurate detail as possible. Drummond’s Sketch is perhaps a fortunate case for decolonising the archive, considering the common lack of credit for Native Americans. It is encouraging to see readers entertained and captivated by the story, and hopefully this has been an inspiring attempt at digitalising and decolonising museum archives for educational purposes.

Figure 4. In-game illustration of Iroquois characters as a tribute to the agency of neglected Indigenous collectors. ©Su Liu

Further reading

My project was supported by the Transforming and Activating Places (TAP) programme at the University of Sheffield. My colleague Harry Pointon, who worked on the same topic, has written a blog post about the programme and the interdisciplinary aspect of his work as an arts and humanities student: https://tuostap.blogspot.com/2023/10/knowledge-exchange-has-no-boundaries.html

Divorced or Separated? Naming the Specimens on Display at the Zoologisches and Palaontologisches Museum, Zurich.

Written by Richard Crawford, who has just completed a PhD thesis at the University of the Arts London, entitled ‘Re-presenting taxidermy, Contemporary Art interventions in Natural History Museums’.

Do people read labels in museums? If they do, what do they learn about the object on view? It has been the custom to use labels to give factual names to the things on display in scientific museum displays, but Art curators have taken a different approach and put titles to works that suggest a particular reading of the artwork. These may be suggested by the artist. A good example of this style of labelling is Damien Hirst’s ‘Mother and Child divided’, an artwork that used preserved specimens.

For this work, Damien Hirst famously sawed a cow and a calf in half and exhibited the separate halves in tanks filled with formaldehyde, which he placed apart with sufficient space for a viewer to walk between the two halves of each animal carcass so that they could observe the internal organs of both cow and calf. When it was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1995, it helped win him the Turner Prize. The title was ironic. Hirst’s work critiques romantic depictions of the animal as part of harmonious natural order, a place in which mothers protect and nurture their young according to supposedly universal maternal instincts. In place of natural harmony, he presented the viewer with the disjuncture and division brought about by human intervention that brought early death to these two animals, destined for the meat market.

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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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