scholarly journals EDUCATIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVES OF NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS IN GENERATION OF NATURAL HERITAGE KNOWLEDGE AND PRESERVATION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY VOUCHERS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Hartmann ◽  
◽  
S.E. Tshernyshev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Scientific Activity ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Natural Heritage ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Increasing Demand

Natural History Museums continue to play a significant role as centres for educational and scientific activity of society; as new types of research potentially evolve in the future, the importance of such Museums does not diminish but only increases. The educational and scientific perspectives of natural history museums in generating knowledge of natural heritage and preserving biological diversity vouchers, have great importance and will be in increasing demand at the nearest future. All scientists working on natural profiles and environmental change are strongly recommended to pay special attention to Museum collections, visit them and help their progress to any extent possible.

Notes on the typification of several chameleon taxa (Sauria: Chamaeleonidae)

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-117
Author(s):  
Charles Klaver
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Type Locality ◽  
Type Material ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
History Museums

Abstract The obscure or dubious designation of the name-bearing type(s) and hence the type locality of three valid chameleon taxa, viz. Brookesia superciliaris, Calumma fallax and Trioceros schubotzi, is researched and clarified. It concerns type-material of the natural history museums of Berlin, London and Paris. In the appendix additional information as to the presence of name-bearing types in various museum collections is presented to amend the checklist of Glaw (2015).

scholarly journals Museum specimens of terrestrial vertebrates are sensitive indicators of environmental change in the Anthropocene

2018 ◽  
Vol 374 (1763) ◽  
pp. 20170387 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Jonathan Schmitt ◽  
Joseph A. Cook ◽  
Kelly R. Zamudio ◽  
Scott V. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Museum Specimens ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Terrestrial Vertebrates ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Biodiversity Science ◽  
The Impact

Natural history museums and the specimen collections they curate are vital scientific infrastructure, a fact as true today as it was when biologists began collecting and preserving specimens over 200 years ago. The importance of museum specimens in studies of taxonomy, systematics, ecology and evolutionary biology is evidenced by a rich and abundant literature, yet creative and novel uses of specimens are constantly broadening the impact of natural history collections on biodiversity science and global sustainability. Excellent examples of the critical importance of specimens come from their use in documenting the consequences of environmental change, which is particularly relevant considering the alarming rate at which we now modify our planet in the Anthropocene. In this review, we highlight the important role of bird, mammal and amphibian specimens in documenting the Anthropocene and provide examples that underscore the need for continued collection of museum specimens. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene’.

scholarly journals Museums in Iceland

1970 ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Helgi Sigurðsson
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Art Museums ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Professional Advice ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The Way

In Iceland there are close to 70 museum collections which is a considerable number bearing in mind that the country has a population of only 260 000. In almost every district and town, not to mention the capital, people have cooperated in collecting objects that reflect the way of life and culture of the nation's past. The main task of most museums is to collect and preserve objects or pieces ofart. Apartfrom exhibiting these objects, some museums organize special exhibitions, lectures and concerts. Most of the larger museums offer professional advice in their fields, e.g. on buildings, objects and preservation. About four out of every five museums (i.e. 48) are ethnographic (folk museums); there are 13 art museums and 10 natural history museums. A few museums are combinations of these three categories. The distribution of these museums is noteworthy: the ethnographic and natural history museums are distributed evenly around the country, while most of the art museums are situated in Reykjavik. In this article the focus is on the cultural history museums, but articles on the art and natural history museums will hopefully follow. 

Symbol species, days and years of animals in natural history events and museum activities

Geo&Bio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (20) ◽  
pp. 135-159
Author(s):  
Igor Zagorodniuk ◽  
◽  
Kateryna Ocheretna ◽  
Sergiy Kharchuk ◽  
Maryna Korobchenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Sustainable Community Development ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
Social Advertising

The paper presents an analytical review of focal animal species as those that are important in sharing natural history knowledge and in the development of environmental initiatives. A detailed analysis of the history and experience of using such animals in the practice of education and museology in the world and in Ukraine is presented. Among the most famous areas of the topic are as follows: 1) attention to wild animals versus attention to domestic ones, 2) formation of a pool of zoo-mascots for different activities and increase the ranking of such species or groups of species, 3) development of zoosymbolism in all forms of activities related to nature (scientific societies, publications, schools-seminars, natural history museums), 4) formation and development of the idea of years of animals (mammal of the year, bird of the year, insect of the year), and 5) formation, share, and development of ideas of special days (bat night, lark day, etc.). The analysis of world and Ukrainian experience showed that the most effective forms of dissemination of knowledge are as follows: 1) production of various small printed products (stickers, calendars, envelopes, stamps, prints), 2) production of more complex forged or minted products (badges, coins, medals), 3) use of paraphernalia on various consumer goods (caps, T-shirts, mugs, balloons, fountain pens, notebooks), 4) holding special promotions, quizzes, contests or quests on thematic days (European Bat Night, International Bird Day, Whale Protection Day), and 5) production and participation in the production of special media products or initiation of social networks (social advertising, documentaries, round tables on the radio and flash mobs on social networks). All these forms of activity can be developed within the "background" work of natural history museums, among them the simplest and least expensive are the days and years of certain animal species that can be performed within the existing exhibitions, complementing such events with interactive forms of work with visitors (competitions, excursions, lectures, presentations of thematic paraphernalia). All this is aimed at sharing knowledge and increasing social attention to the issues of biological diversity, sustainable nature and sustainable community development.

The Scientific Value of Natural History Museum Collections: The Concept of Completeness

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 109-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce S. Lieberman ◽  
Roger L. Kaesler
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Data Points ◽  
Scientific Value

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS are one of the greatest resources available to paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. Through their exhibits, they have inspired generations of children to become paleontologists, and they also serve as a tremendous repository of realized and potential data. If invertebrate fossils can be thought of as individual data points, in the United States alone there are perhaps 100 million data points. Yet, in spite of this, museums, like other sources of data, have their shortcomings. What are these short comings, and how severe are they? Are they so severe as to obviate the scientific value of the collections of fossils held by natural history museums? It is this topic that we address herein.There is a useful analogy between the debate about the usefulness of natural history museum collections and the debate about the completeness of the fossil record. Are natural history museums representative of the fossil record, and are they complete enough to be adequate for research? We intend to pursue the analogy between the fossil record and natural history museums as we develop our ideas about paleontological collections. Just as numerous studies have concluded that the fossil record, albeit incomplete, is adequate to answer a wide variety of scientific questions, so too shall we argue that the data preserved in natural history museums are complete enough and adequate to answer a wide variety of important research questions in paleontology.

Approaching Archaeological Museum Collections through the Concept of Assemblage: The Case Study of the Jesuit Mission San Ignacio Miní (1610–1631)

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-631
Author(s):  
Evelyn R. Nimmo
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Initial Formation ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Museum Archives

In Brazil, as in most countries, history and natural history museums are the repositories of rich collections of excavated archaeological material. One of the major challenges in working with these collections is the paucity of information available regarding the original excavations, which raises important questions that archaeologists and museum studies professionals have been grappling with for several decades: what interpretive value do these collections have without any contextual information, and are they worth maintaining in museum archives that are facing continuing crises in space and resources? This article uses the concepts of entanglement and assemblage to discuss a collection of ceramics excavated from one of the first Spanish Jesuit missions in colonial Paraguay, San Ignacio Miní (1610–1631), and housed at the Museu Paranaense in Curitiba, Brazil. Despite the lack of contextual information from the 1963 excavation, we can begin to explore the entangled pasts, present, and future of these objects by tracing the trajectory of the collection from the initial formation through excavation and contemporary analysis. Innovative approaches are needed to address methodological and theoretical concerns in analyzing archaeological museum collections to ensure that the knowledge and potential insights entangled in these collections are not lost.

Fund natural-history museums, not de-extinction

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 598 (7879) ◽  
pp. 32-32
Author(s):  
Corrie S. Moreau ◽  
Jessica L. Ware
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museums

scholarly journals The Global Museum: natural history collections and the future of evolutionary science and public education

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek T. Bakker ◽  
Alexandre Antonelli ◽  
Julia A. Clarke ◽  
Joseph A. Cook ◽  
Scott V. Edwards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Museum Data

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and educational innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all stages of their careers, they can provide a place-based window to focus on integration of science and discovery, as well as a locus for community engagement. At the same time, like a synthesis radio telescope, when joined together through emerging digital resources, the global community of museums (the ‘Global Museum’) is more than the sum of its parts, allowing insights and answers to diverse biological, environmental, and societal questions at the global scale, across eons of time, and spanning vast diversity across the Tree of Life. We argue that, whereas natural history collections and museums began with a focus on describing the diversity and peculiarities of species on Earth, they are now increasingly leveraged in new ways that significantly expand their impact and relevance. These new directions include the possibility to ask new, often interdisciplinary questions in basic and applied science, such as in biomimetic design, and by contributing to solutions to climate change, global health and food security challenges. As institutions, they have long been incubators for cutting-edge research in biology while simultaneously providing core infrastructure for research on present and future societal needs. Here we explore how the intersection between pressing issues in environmental and human health and rapid technological innovation have reinforced the relevance of museum collections. We do this by providing examples as food for thought for both the broader academic community and museum scientists on the evolving role of museums. We also identify challenges to the realization of the full potential of natural history collections and the Global Museum to science and society and discuss the critical need to grow these collections. We then focus on mapping and modelling of museum data (including place-based approaches and discovery), and explore the main projects, platforms and databases enabling this growth. Finally, we aim to improve relevant protocols for the long-term storage of specimens and tissues, ensuring proper connection with tomorrow’s technologies and hence further increasing the relevance of natural history museums.

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