More International Visitors at the Booth Museum

The Booth Museum has had two international visitors this month on very different missions. Both were from North America, and both are studying for their Ph.D.s.

Caitlin Silberman

First we welcomed Caitlin Silberman from California, but studying for her doctorate in Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is in the early stages of writing a dissertation on birds and bird/human hybridity in Victorian British art, visual culture, and material culture. One of her chapters deals with bird taxidermy, and the Booth Museum is of course a prime source for nineteenth-century taxidermy. Caitlin looked at all our archives about Mr. Booth, his diaries, catalogues and paintings, as well of course as his splendid 4-volume publication ‘Rough notes on the birds observed during twenty-five years’ shooting and Collecting in the British Islands, 1881-1887.

Michelle Campbell

Only a week later, we were happy to be able to help Michelle Campbell in her quest for Chalk fossils of some early representatives of marine reptiles. Michelle is studying for her doctorate at the University of Alberta, though she originally comes from Ottawa. She is interested in how land-based reptiles made the leap into becoming fully marine in their habits. Michelle’s supervisor, Prof. Mike Caldwell first visited the Booth Museum in 1995 and discovered our rich collection of 85 million year old fossils which he studied and published on. Michelle is extending those studies.

We take a great deal of pleasure in the knowledge that we are able to help people as diverse as scientists and art historians advance their studies by using the collections in the Booth Museum.

John Cooper, Keeper of Natural Sciences

The Booth Museum Stars in a New Fossil Project!

The fossil collections at the Booth Museum are currently getting some attention they deserve! Two scientists from the British Geological Survey (BGS) are spending a week with us photographing some of our most important specimens.

Dr Michaela Contessi and Simon Harris

International science codes require that every species or subspecies of organism, whether living or fossil, should have a type or reference specimen to define its characteristic features. These specimens are held in museums and collections around the world and must be available for study. The Booth’s collection of fossil type specimens are available to scientists all over the world through a catalogue.

Many of the UK fossil species were defined over a century ago, and with time, the type specimens may have deteriorated or been lost, causing major problems.

The GB/3D type fossils online project, funded through the BGS by JISC (the Joint Information Science Committee), aims to develop a single database of the type specimens held in British collections, of fossil species and subspecies found in the UK, including links to photographs and a selection of 3D digital models.

The BGS is partnered by:

• National Museum Cardiff
• Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
• Oxford University Museum of Natural History
• Geological Curators’ Group

Together they will develop a collaborative database of British type specimens.

The results will be made available through a single searchable web database. It will include links to view or download high quality images, stereo pairs (anaglyphs) and digital models.

This week Dr Michaela Contessi and Simon Harris are working on the fossils held at the Booth Museum, and they are writing a blog of their work which can be seen here

John Cooper, Keeper of Natural Sciences

The annual Booth Museum, spruce up!

As the annual closed week at the Booth draws to a close, a number of changes have been made to the museum which the casual visitor may or may not notice.

One of the main aims of the week was to get all of Booth’s birds back on display. As a result the last remaining display boards near the front of the museum have been taken down, opening up those bird cases to visitors once more.

Another major aim of the week was a refurbishment of the Discovery gallery in preparation for new display cabinets, due to be installed in mid March. This extremely well used, family orientated gallery was in need of a spruce up. Over the course of the week the walls and other painted surfaces have been repainted and those surfaces not suitable for repainting have been scrubbed down and made to look as presentable as possible. Many of the labels have also been reprinted and repaired, and some additional objects have been moved out of storage and into the gallery for visitors to see for the first time.

Repairing the cornucopia display

Cornucopia display of exotic birds

Uncovering Booths Birds

Repainted geology gallery entrance

Repainted Discovery gallery

Repainting cabinets

Refurbished secure cabinet moved into position

Refurbished labelling in the Discovery gallery

Papparazzi strikes!

Kestrels on show again

Marcus vs the hippo

New objects on display

A fox brought down from storage

Cleaning the Victorian parlour

Cleaning the repainted Discovery gallery

Cleaning the insect gallery

Cleaning the cornucopia case

The removal of the panels covering several of the bird displays, as well as the imminent arrival of new cabinets for the Discovery gallery, has required us to move around several of the displays in the museum. One such move was the cornucopia display of exotic birds which has featured on much of the museum’s publicity material in the past. As the move involved building a new plinth and dismantling of parts of the display, we took the opportunity to give the birds and glass a thorough clean. The misty glass is now transparent once more, and the birds have been carefully cleaned to remove the dust that had made its way into the case.

Outside of these major tasks, our team of helpers from across the various museum sites and departments, along with many of our volunteers, did sterling work giving a good clean of the case fronts, carpets and other public areas.

Many thanks to everyone who made time in their extremely busy schedules to give us a hand, and thanks to Lucy, Steve, Peter, Sarah et al, for biscuits and cakes for the troops!

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences