Blogs from the Natural History Museum
Inspiring a love of the natural world
What would you ask if you could ask a curator anything? This Ask a Curator Day we brought together a panel of experts from across the museum to answer your burning questions on collections, research, preparing millions of specimens for the move to Harwell Campus and much more. In this blog we share some of the highlights.
Continue reading “What would you ask if you could ask a curator anything?”
This year I’m writing a diary entry each month for a typical week in the life of a Principal Curator at the Natural History Museum. In the June entry, I provide my fingerprint and quote for an art project, review our sectional documentation, review a paper on the Downton Gorge in Shropshire, put together a grant proposal and have a late night call out to mitigate a leak threatening the collections.
Continue reading “Curator of Micropalaeontology | Diary of a Principal Curator June 2021”
by Clare Matterson, Executive Director of Engagement
It is wonderful to have the Museum open again and to welcome visitors back to our galleries and gardens. Reopening has enabled us to reinstate and extend our provision for neuro-diverse audiences and better serve our local communities. At the same time, work has also continued apace behind the scenes to make our Museum and workforce as inclusive as possible.
Continue reading “Maintaining Momentum on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion | Executive Director of Engagement”
In this blog, we’re looking at a recent paper that cited some of our data in investigating the conservation potential of protected areas of rainforest using data on the Woolly monkey (Lagothrix lagothricha).
Continue reading “Data in action: museum collections provide evidence for protecting rainforests | Digital Collections Programme”
This year I’m writing a diary entry each month for a typical week in the life of a Principal Curator at the Natural History Museum. In the April entry, we are offered a large microfossil collection, I review a paper about left and right coiling microfossils, help prospective visitors to apply for funds, provide some images to help university remote teaching and have a virtual meeting with our new director.
Continue reading “Curator of Micropalaeontology | Diary of a Principal Curator April 2021”
Imagine inspecting millions of specimens collected over hundreds of years to check the correct information is recorded on the database, including where they are located. If it doesn’t exist in the database, imagine having to individually enter the correct information for these millions of specimens. And if that wasn’t challenging enough, imagine being timed while you do it. This is happening right now in a pilot study at the Museum’s South London storage facility, in preparation for the biggest move of specimens since the Museum opened in 1881.
Continue reading “Gone fishing – first collection move pilot study underway | Clare Atkinson, Collections Assistant”
This year I’m writing a diary entry each month for a typical week in the life of a Principal Curator at the Natural History Museum. In the March entry, one of my discoveries appears on the front cover of a journal, pebbles bought at the Rock, Mineral and Fossil show in Tucson are registered, images of fossil fish scales bring back fond memories, I uncover a specimen from Sloane’s original British Museum collection and a departmental reshuffle means a change in role.
Continue reading “Curator of Micropalaeontology | Diary of a Principal Curator March 2021”
Museum Archives have the important role of documenting and recording the work of an organisation, as ours have since we opened in 1881. For the Natural History Museum, the Archives also illustrate the role that the collections and staff have had in wider social and cultural history, both nationally and internationally. In this intriguing story from our collections, Assistant Archivist Kathryn Rooke looks at the impact of fashion trends on the natural world, and how our staff contributed to an important change in the law.
Continue reading “The Plumage Act and the role of staff at the NHM | Library and Archives”
It’s been a year since we had to first close the doors of the Museum due to the pandemic, and like the rest of our colleagues, the Digital Collections Programme (DCP) team have adjusted to the world of video calls, furlough and working from home. Despite these challenges, in 2020 the team imaged 72,000 specimens, transcribed data from 85,000 specimens and georeferenced 17,000 specimens, giving us plenty of progress to reflect on from this challenging year. Over 25 billion data records have now been downloaded from the Data Portal and GBIF in over 360,000 download events, and remote working has only further highlighted the pertinence of digitising collections and making them accessible to the world.
Continue reading “The Digital Collections Programme in a year like no other | Digital Collections Programme”This year I’m writing a diary entry each month for a typical week in the life of a Principal Curator at the Natural History Museum. In the February entry I cover working in the fabulous Minerals Gallery, helping my PhD student using a mobile phone down a microscope, Zoom fail during a talk to a local Geological Society, writing a digital strategy and finishing a paper about the assessment of the entire museum collection.
