A Place for Kids? The Public Image of Natural History Museums

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Strager ◽  
Jens Astrup
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Museums

scholarly journals Why are our Jar Lids Crumbling?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e25928
Author(s):  
Jennifer Trimble
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Specific Interest ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Comparative Zoology ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Public Exhibition

Glass jars and lids used to house fluid preserved specimens in Natural History Museums are arguably one of the most important factors needed to ensure the long term conservation of the specimens in their collections. Additionally these jars are used to display specimens in exhibits, and are the first, and often the only line of defense against damage caused by evaporation of the fluids used to preserve specimens. The Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) was established as the public face of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) which opened its doors in 1859. Often, the Museum of Comparative Zoology loans fluid preserved invertebrates to the Museum of Natural History at Harvard for display. Of specific interest to this project is a permanent arthropod exhibit displaying a variety of specimens in jars ranging from 4 oz to 1 gallon in size. During a 7-year public exhibition loan, lids began to deteriorate while on display. Visually, these lids became cracked and webbed, and upon physical manipulation the plastic crumpled into pieces. Notably, this problem has not been observed in research collections where the specimens are permanently stored. Possible factors affecting lid stability include temperature and light, and other unknowns. Given the potential impact of this issue on all collections we investigated the possible causes of lid degradation and wish to bring attention to this issue. Photography was used to document the physical problem and MicroCT was used to investigate both cracked and new lids. The resulting images are displayed here. Although the composition of lids are explored, and other jar methods outlined, flint jars remain the most consistent, and sturdy option for a student oriented museum.

scholarly journals Is Darwin dangerous? Museums, media, and public understanding of evolution

1970 ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Hanne Stranger ◽  
Peter C. Kjærgaard
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The Media ◽  
Controversial Topic

What defines a topic as controversial? How does one measure its significance? Is it what commentators find controversial, what a majority of people think, or what generates the most heated debates? There is general consensus that evolution has been a controversial topic since the mid-nineteenth century. The scientific debate was settled in the 1930s with the modern synthesis bringing genetics and the theory of evolution by natural selection together within a single theoretical framework. The public debates, however, continued, mainly due to religiously motivated anti-evolution activists. The conflict narrative of science and religion with evolution versus creation has been – and still is – a particular favourite with the press. Consequently, the media is complicit in maintaining evolution as a controversial topic. This is the reality natural history museums have to deal with when communicating evolution. The question is whether it makes any difference which strategies museums take and, if so, whether it is possible to measure the difference. The authors discuss the role natural history museums have in the public discourse of evolution by looking at the different approaches in 2009 to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, comparing it to the media coverage of the events in the Scandinavian countries. 

“Tibet, High Land of Monk and Nomad”: Field Museum Opens New Exhibition

1968 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-608
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
The Public ◽  
Field Museum ◽  
History Museums ◽  
World's Columbian Exposition ◽  
Columbian Exposition

One of the world's four most celebrated natural history museums, Field Museum in Chicago, has only recently completed and opened to the public a new permanent exhibition called “Tibet, High Land of Monk and Nomad.”Founded in 1893, Field Museum grew from a nest egg of materials from the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago the same year. Almost immediately, founder Marshall Field began sending out expeditions to enrich the Museum's nucleus of display materials. As early as 1908, Dr. Berthold Laufer led the Mrs. T. B. Blackstone Expedition to the remote Himalayan theocracy of Tibet. During the expedition, which went to both China and Tibet between 1908 and 1910, Dr. Laufer collected some 10,000 specimens for Field Museum, principally ethnological in nature. A large number of the Chinese materials were brought together in a special Civilization of China exhibition which opened four years ago.

The Museum as a Cinematic Space

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Mandelli
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Exhibition Design ◽  
First Century ◽  
Extensive Investigation ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Cinematic Space ◽  
Broad Variety

Moving images have become a common feature in museums, where visitors are now accustomed to finding a broad variety of projections and screens. But when did films start to be displayed in history, science or natural history museums? How did visitors react to the transformation of static displays by means of moving images? And what are the current stakes of showing audio-visuals in exhibition spaces? The Museum as a Cinematic Space is an extensive investigation of the use of moving images in exhibition design outside the art field. It explores how museums have incorporated films and audio-visuals in their display from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the present. The Museum as a Cinematic Space investigates the inclusion of cinematic elements (films, screens, projections) within the display. In addition to describing the strategies used by the curators to exhibit films, the book identifies the practical, technical and discursive conditions that made possible the use of moving images in museum galleries during the twentieth and twenty-first century. By opening itself to moving images, the exhibition becomes a place where cinema and museum spectatorships converge, reshaping the relations between the public, the images, and viewing space.

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.

scholarly journals NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
Dimítri De Araújo Costa ◽  
Nuno Gomes ◽  
Harold Cantallo ◽  
Carlos Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World ◽  
Object Of Study

Society in general is distant from scientific culture, it is required to bring scientific knowledge closer to the population. In this context, an effective and attractive way for scientific dissemination is the establishment of natural history museums, which are institutions of knowledge, displaying the past. Natural history museums have the natural world as their object of study; and their collections may contain the most diverse types of materials (local and/or from various parts of the world), such as zoological, botanical, geological, archaeological, among others. Scientific collections are the largest and most important source of authoritative biodiversity data, contributing to studies of biodiversity composition, evolutionary (morphological and genetic), biogeographical, phenological, as well as geological. The materials present in these collections may serve for temporal comparison, being useful to produce predictive models. Likewise, they have a fundamental role in safeguarding type specimens, i.e. the first organisms identified to describe and name a new species. In addition, there is the component available to visitors in general, in order to raise public awareness on the preservation of the local fauna and flora and of other places in the world. In this way, the museums serve both the academic-scientific public and visitors who come to these sites for recreational purposes. It is intended to promote, in Vila Nova de Cerveira, the Natural History Museum of the Iberian Peninsula - NatMIP (“Museu de História Natural da Península Ibérica”), which intends to collect materials for scientific purposes, mainly Iberian.

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