: Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales

Museums are brilliant and inspiring places, there can be no doubt about it. People visit museums for many, many reasons. Museums make you smarter, inspire, are a focus for the community and a great place to spend time with your friends and family. But what effect does a museum visit have on you? The entertainment factor of a museum makes you feel enjoyment. Understanding how things work raises your self-esteem. Appreciating the aesthetics of a great object stretches your imagination and is uplifting. And you get all of this in a calm and safe place. People definitely visit museums to feel good and if you need a bit of a lift I would wholeheartedly recommend you visit your local museum.

There is plenty of research to back all of this up. Museums make us happy – museum visits contribute more to wellbeing than arts and sports. Museums, especially if working in partnership with other organisations, can make a huge contribution to mental health (Museum Development North West Who Cares report). The economic benefits of museums are estimated to be in the order of £1.5 billion per year. And while many museums have reduced their own carbon footprints, the role the cultural sector play in driving wider societal change is also growing.

Museums have an enormous potential to change and develop communities. One of the best places to visit in any town and city for access to current research and new ideas is the museum. Museums are therefore best placed for being hot spots of community engagement. In this context, the Museums Association, through their new flagship campaign Museums Change Lives), encourages museums to be more proactive in making an impact on society and people’s wellbeing.

It is hard in the current financial climate especially for small museums with staff shortages, leaking roofs and paint peeling off the walls to continue this work. Fortunately, museums attract some of the most enthusiastic and resourceful staff and volunteers, who, despite these pressures, will do anything they can to ensure that museums continue to be good for you.

The Welsh Museums Federation’s ‘Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales’ project is supporting curators in 20 local museums around Wales. By providing training and information about natural science collections we are going to ensure the continued use of these collections for inspiration, learning and community focus. We are enabling curators to care for and use their natural science collections. This will help to ensure that museums in Wales can look into the future and still make us happy for many more years to come.

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Since the late 1990s, when the report ‘A Common Wealth’ argued that museum education needed more resources and a higher profile, there has been a shift within museums. Education is now viewed central to the role of museums and integrated into everything museums do. Museums have always been spaces of scholarship, and there is a clear link between scholarship and education. The purpose of museum education has to be to enhance the ability of visitors to understand and appreciate museum collections.

The new emphasis on learning in museums mainly comes from a change in philosophy within the museum sector, but it is also driven by funders such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, who encourage applicants to include specific learning elements within their projects. It is surely not a coincidence that the Clore Duffield Foundation has funded dozens of Learning Spaces in the past 15 years.

Local context of big concepts

The purpose of the ‘Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales’ project is to lead the way in the implementation of the Distributed National Collection in Wales. This, very much in line with the modern way of viewing museum education, naturally includes a symbiotic relationship with learning. One important way of using museum collections is to integrate them into the school curriculum. Schools should be able to use their local museum as a resource to support their teaching.

In Wales it has recently been proposed to modify the Cwricwlwm Cymreig, and to integrate the Welsh dimension into every subject taught in schools, not only History. In the centenary of the death of Alfred Russell Wallace, who was instrumental in developing the concept of Evolution to explain the diversity of life, schools up and down Wales ought to be able to call on museums for local examples. This local distinctiveness is important in a cultural context; it can also be used as a teaching aid, and this is where the potential of the Cwricwlwm Cymreig lies as a useful integration in the National Curriculum.

There are many positive local examples to illustrate the wider context, for instance Wallace (who was born in Llanbadoc), the naturalist Edward Lhuyd (or Llwyd, after whom the Snowdon lily is named, as well as the Welsh natural history organization Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd), Arthur Trueman's work on Coal Measure stratigraphy, T.N. George's contributions to Welsh geology, geneticist Steve Jones, Bill Frost's 'flying machine', etc. The work of these pioneers could be used to illustrate the subject and make it meaningful at local school level, as well as their personalities heralded as positive local role models.

Education resources

The Welsh Museums Federation, through the ‘Linking Collections’ project, will develop education resources for schools specifically linked to examples in local museums. These will be available online to teachers. Our aspiration is to create digital and web based resources, derived from museums, which are so easy to use, comprehensive and fascinating that they find a place at the heart of education.

Of course, while museums support formal learning, they can do much more than that and the educational activities of museums should not be limited to the school curriculum. Museums provide experiences and opportunities that many people lack; they stimulate discussion and debate; and they provoke responses ranging from joy and pleasure ('I have never seen that before') to disbelief and doubt ('I don't believe it and you have got to work hard to convince me that it's true'). All of this contributes to both our intellectual and emotional education and development and enhances our lexicon of experiences. And because we know that the habits of museum visitation are formed early in life and passed down from generation to generation, schools are ideally placed to support sustainable numbers of museum visits, and hence the focus on the school curriculum by the ‘Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales’ project.

Professor Dimbledare of Warthogs University is a geneticist working on the evolution of parasites in insects. This is important because bee populations are currently declining partly due to being attacked by increasing numbers of parasites; this threatens human food production, as bees are the most important pollinators of many fruits and vegetables. Professor Dimbledare wants to find out whether there is historic evidence for temporary increases in parasite attacks on bees. He wants to look at museum collections worldwide and extract DNA from specimens. Where does he start looking for suitable collections?

Can you help me find...

This is a hypothetical scenario, but a typical example of the sort of enquiries frequently received by museum curators. Museums are being approached either through the mailing lists of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (which has a worldwide reach), the Natural Sciences Collections Association (UK), or – and this is really hard work – individually, one by one. When (15 long years ago) I undertook the research for my PhD I wrote to more than 20 individual botanic gardens around the world to ask if they had any clippings of a wonderful little fern-like plant called whisk fern (Psilotum nudum).

Museums are vast repositories of nature, and there are thousands of them. They document life on Earth (past and present) by housing specimens and associated data. Not all museums contain everything, but combined they represent a brilliant account of the natural history of a country and even our planet (see the Distributed National Collection article below).

Museum specimens are being sought for research projects, exhibitions in other museums, and by school teachers and university lecturers for education inside and out of the classroom. Museums are usually very happy to let people look at, study, and even borrow specimens. But finding an example of an animal, plant, fossil or mineral in a museum collection can be extremely difficult. The chances are you have some specimens in a museum near you – how do you find out where?

Internet data bases

Both the scope and quality of databases vary. Some only list basic collections information and contact details of staff (e.g. Index Herbariorum and Registry of Biological Repositories). Others contain information about individual specimens, both living and fossil (e.g. GBIF, Geological Collections of Estonia); these types of data bases are created specifically for researchers. Others again try to capture the culture, history and natural history of an individual country (People’s Collection Wales), aimed for use by the general public. The number of records in these data bases is huge, reaching into the billions.

There is, however, a discussion amongst scientists how much information we want to make available publicly. Sometimes it is not a good idea, for example, to publish information of where to find species that are endangered. Museums do have a responsibility to care for not only their collections, but also the conservation of living species. It would not be a good idea to alert everyone and their dog to the occurrence of species listed as threatened or endangered by CITES;because nobody would want to drive them closer to extinction through overcollecting.

So, where does this leave Professor Dimbledare? Increasingly there are attempts to include global information in data bases, so he should find it easier in the future to locate the specimens for his research. Some data bases are merging, e.g. Index Herbariorum and Registry of Biological Repositories. And in Wales, the People’s Collection is currently being redeveloped to make it more user-friendly; in the near future it will be easier to upload and search for information on museum collections, including natural science collections.  With increasing digitisation it gets easier all the time to locate museum specimens.

More than 100 institutions in Wales have natural science collections in their care. Natural science includes all things connected to the natural world: bird skins, insects, minerals, shells, fossils, plants, fluid preserved specimens and even microorganisms such as diatoms. These collections contain an awful lot of knowledge of our present and past natural history, and one purpose of museums is to preserve this knowledge for posterity.

What is a museum?

Museums are guardians of knowledge, and collections are what makes museums special. Collections are what sets museums apart from other organisations, the absolute core of museum work. There has been a discussion for a while over the traditional concept of the museum as a collecting institution, and whether to broaden the definition of a museum to include institutions without collections, for example one-object museums (e.g., ship museums) or science centres. However, exhibitions, research and many education activities are not possible without specimens and objects from museum collections.

Hand in hand with collections goes the knowledge that is embodied in them. Knowledge of the objects, their collectors, their provenance, their age, their cultural and scientific associations, and simply where objects are stored. This is the information that makes a collection usable. In recent years, many museums have managed to update their storage records. In many cases records are available in digital form and are easily searchable. Having said that, every museum curator knows that records are far from complete even in large museums with fancy collections management systems.

Collections information

The overwhelming majority of collections information is in the heads of the curators looking after these collections. This is especially the case for tacit knowledge – the ‘soft data’, information about collectors and their biographies and interests, stories and anecdotes about objects and collectors. The sort of thing that makes or breaks good exhibitions. Most of the time, these stories are never written down; instead, they are passed down the generations from curator to curator, and it takes years to learn all this.

It is easy to argue that a collection without information is worthless. If I cannot identify the objects in my collection, if I cannot find them, if I do not even know I have them, there is no point keeping the collection because it is, to all intents and purposes, worthless. Ultimately, this last point is the biggest danger – most curators are aware of stories of valuable collections ending up in a skip because the person making the decision did not have the right knowledge. And if we do not know what we are throwing out we have no idea what we are losing. Ultimately, society as a whole would become poorer culturally, historically and scientifically.

The specialist curator

Good curators then are not a luxury but a necessity. And a good curator needs to be a jack of all trades to be master of one: trained in a specialist subject, with experience of collections management, research, design, public speaking and storytelling, a communicator who understands the need for sharing knowledge with other museums and, crucially, the public. With people like that looking after museum collections our cultural and scientific heritage should be perfectly safe.

But here’s the thing: the number of natural history curators fell by one third in the past ten years (Museums Journal 113/04). The trend is similar – if somewhat less dramatic – in other subject disciplines. There is an increasing number of ‘orphaned’ collections, which have nobody to care for and protect them, let alone use them. In Wales the current situation is that out of more than 100 institutions with natural science collections, only a single one has any specialist curators left – the National Museum.

This makes it immensely more difficult for museums to use their collections. We do need to know where collections are and how they can be accessed. Local communities, schools, tourists and researchers want to see those collections and learn about them. The good news is that most of the collections are still there.

How collections reviews can help

The ‘Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales’ project is now starting to assess the first collections in local museums. Specialist curators from Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales are soon going to review collections across Wales. The intention is to capture information about those collections in a single database. This does not replace the need for specialist curators, But local staff and volunteers will trained and much more able to utilise their collections. This will mean better educational materials, better exhibitions and a better experience for museum visitors. Most importantly, however, it means that these collections will be safely preserved for future generations.

There are number of reasons why we would want to undertake a national review of museum collections. One of them is to aid the development of a Distributed National Collection (DNC), one of the most exciting collections management concepts in recent years.

DNC - What is it?

The idea of the DNC implies a shared responsibility for our heritage. The Museum Strategy for Wales recognises that collections telling the story of Wales are kept across the nation by a diverse range of museum institutions. Collections – and the knowledge that goes with them – remain at the heart of museums; they are the reason museums exist and what makes them unique.

Many museums collect to reflect the culture and natural history of the geographic area they cover. Other museums collect material related to a specific site, activity, community or object specialism. A museum’s collecting remit is usually defined in its acquisition policy. When accepting objects into their collections museums consider not only to their own acquisition policies, but also those of other museums – this coordinated approach to collecting is one benefit of the shared knowledge that comes with a DNC.

There are a number of reasons that may reduce a museum’s capacity to collect as comprehensively as it had previously done. An agreement with other museums could facilitate the development of specialized subject-based collections, and arrangements to facilitate management of and access to objects and specimens. Institutions across Wales would co-ordinate the collection, display, research, storage and disposal of collections to ensure the greatest access to collections with efficient targeting of resources. This strategy represents a move away from the location of collections to a focus on how they are used and cared for.

Why do we need one?

The concept of the DNC was adopted by CyMAL for the Welsh Assembly Government within the 2010 Museum Strategy for Wales, and endorsed by museums across Wales. Collections and the stories they tell are the most fundamental of museum assets. In recent years there have been a number of important initiatives to better document, understand and care for museum collections. Whilst this remains by no means a comprehensive achievement with much still to be done, we now have an opportunity to take stock and develop new concepts and initiatives.

Driving factors for the development of a DNC may be funding constraints, or loss of specialist expertise. However, the DNC is about more than simply pooling resources. The concept enables the museum sector to, among other things:

-          promote our collections,

-          work collaboratively across the sector,

-          collect comprehensively, and

-          improve access both within the collecting community and for the public.

How will it help the public?

The public benefit lies in a better understanding and appreciation of our collections, which opens up ways and means to improve our enjoyment of and access to them. Knowing where the most historically significant and intrinsically important items and records are kept, and how they can be accessed, can only be of benefit to those who wish to see them as well as to those charged with their long term care and interpretation.

What’s in it for museums?

The DNC enables information to be discovered and shared, omissions within collections identified and areas of overlap addressed with informed collecting. This makes museum collections more robust and relevant. Scientists, such as biologists and geologists, in particular, have long known that museum collections globally are one single resource. Specimens held in museum collections form a physical inventory of the history of life on Earth. Specimens are kept, in preference to data and images alone, for the physical information they contain.

Museums are seen by the public as unbiased guardians of factual information and therefore have the potential, if they are not reduced to simply recycling nostalgia, for influencing public opinion in an authoritative way. The concept of the DNC formalises the relationship between museums and supports easier sharing of specimens and information. It forms a coordinated strategy to ensure the preservation of a nation’s cultural material, and to facilitate broader physical and intellectual access to it. Museum collections will add up to much more than the sum of their parts.  This partnership approach is important in any subject discipline, not only in natural history, for museums to retain their status as keepers of knowledge.

Natural history museums are in the midst of an unprecedented opportunity for linking collections-based research with the experiences they offer to the millions of people they serve each year. If they are successful in fully integrating these two historically separate realities, they have enormous potential to elevate the public understanding of, engagement with, and participation in urgent and compelling scientific challenges now and in the future.