Museum » Biodiversity in Focus Blog

Collections Under Fire – Royal British Columbia Museum

Biology, Entomology, For a Good Cause 4 Responses »

Jan 062015

Natural History Collections are the Libraries of biology. They collect, protect, and maintain the specimens that allow us to understand how the natural world works, and then they make them available for people to use, study and enjoy, usually for free. Every specimen is irreplaceable, a priceless first edition that allows us to explore, interpret and compare the unique ways in which evolution, ecology, and the environment have shaped not only the species we share this planet with, but also ourselves.

Imagine a library without a librarian. What do you suppose would happen? For one, there wouldn’t be any new books added for you to borrow, enjoy, or learn from, so you better like the classics and not be interested in keeping up with the New York Times Bestseller List. That’s assuming of course you can even find the books you’re interested in, because without someone to make sure they’re kept in their proper spot and order maintained, shelves will devolve into chaos, and it won’t be long until insects, microbes, and the environment begin to decompose the entire collection into piles of poorly organized dust.

The same is true for biological collections, only the librarians are called curators. Without a curator, a natural history collection is nothing more than a poorly organized pile of dust in waiting. No museum in their right mind would allow the very core of their existence decompose like this, would they?

The Royal British Columbia Museum is thinking about it. The CEO of the museum, Professor Jack Lohman, is of the mind that the Entomology Collection no longer needs a paid curator, and that the money earmarked for employing one could be better spent elsewhere in the museum. He couldn’t be more wrong.

The last entomology curator, Dr. Robert Cannings (who happens to be a dipterist who did his PhD at the very lab bench that I’m doing mine at now) retired in 2012 after a 32 year career as Curator of Entomology. He has stayed on as Curator Emeritus, but the museum has yet to hire his replacement, and has now publicly stated that they likely won’t.

Let’s return to our library metaphor again for a moment to illustrate how poor, and unprofessional, the decision to let the RBCM entomology collection go without a curator is. According to their website and this information sheet put together by the collection staff (PDF), the entomology collection at the RBCM was established in 1886, and now holds roughly 600,000 specimens. Compare that to the Canadian Library of Parliament, the most prestigious library in Canada that is attached to our Parliament Buildings and which serves as the official repository and resource for our government. It was founded a mere 10 years before the RBCM entomology collection, in 1876, and also houses 600,000 items today. The difference is that Library of Parliament employs 300 people to keep it running and functional, while the Royal British Columbia Museum Entomology Collection currently employs 1 collection manager, and has been deemed undeserving of a curator to maintain its esteemed history.

That is unacceptable.

But it’s not too late. Professor Lohman has agreed to hear arguments for why the entomology curatorship position should be filled, and will delay making a final decision until January 22, 2015.

Natural History Collections matter. Entomology matters. Curators matter. Please join me in letting Professor Lohman know that this is not an issue that should even be negotiated, never mind cut outright. Write him a letter (his address & email are below). Tweet at him using @RoyalBCMuseum and share why museums and the collections they maintain matter to you; tweets including the museum’s Twitter handle seem to go directly onto the front page of the museum website for all to see!

Stand up for entomology research in Canada. Don’t let 129 years of natural heritage turn to dust.

—

Write to:

Prof. Jack Lohman

Chief Executive Officer

Royal British Columbia Museum

675 Belleville St,

Victoria, BC V8W 9W2

JLohman@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca

And send a copy to:

Peter Ord: Vice President, Archives, Collections, and Knowledge

POrd@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca

Adventure Time Awaits

Diptera, Entomology, Life as a Grad Student, Travel, Trip Report No Responses »

Aug 052014

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me since my qualifying exams. I’ve travelled up to Ottawa a few times to work with my co-advisor and gather a big, new DNA dataset, I’ve put my Google-fu and Google Translate skills to the test, and I’ve learned how spoiled I am by the ease of booking hotels in North America.

All of that hard work is about to payoff though, as I’m heading out for a grand European tour! Starting with a red-eye flight Tuesday evening, I’ll be attending the 8th International Congress of Dipterology (ICD8), and spending 2 weeks on the roads and in the natural history museums of Europe.

This is the second ICD I’ll have attended, and just like the last one in Costa Rica, I’ll be blogging all the way through about the things I learn, experiences I have, and whatever else comes up. I’ll also be tweeting, Instagramming & Vine-ing my way across the continent afterwards as I visit natural history museums and entomology collections looking for important type specimens of Micropezidae described by some of entomology’s biggest names over the past 250 years.

Starting with a quick stop in Iceland to explore, I’ll move on to Copenhagen to visit the Natural History Museum of Denmark, and then will be driving down to Potsdam, Germany to present my newly acquired data at ICD8 and fill my head with all kinds of new knowledge about flies & dipterology. After that I’ll be hitting the road with fellow PhD student & blogger Kai Burington to visit museums in Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, and Muncheberg before heading back to Denmark to visit friends and fly home.

Before things kick off, I’d like to thank the Smithsonian Institute and the S.W. Williston Diptera Fund for making this trip possible for me with a Diptera Research Grant. If you’d like to help make future opportunities like this possible for graduate students like myself or others interested in dipterology, I’d encourage you to donate to the S.W. Williston Fund. You can find more information about S.W. Williston and the Smithsonian endowment fund program here.

It’s going to be a whirlwind trip, and I hope you’ll join me as I try and share my European adventure with you.

Moron Journalist Finds New Way to Embarass His Blog Network

Biology, Blogosphere, Natural History, Rant, Review, Taxonomy 12 Responses »

Dec 062011

The Victim - Spinops sternbergorum (artistic reconstruction by Dmitry Bogdanov, image from Science 2.0 story)

I don’t use this blog as a platform to rant very often, but a story published on Gawker this afternoon has me all riled up.

In “Moron Paleontologists Find New Species of Dinosaur in Their Own Museum“, author Max Read decides he’s fully qualified to judge how paleontology and taxonomy in general should be done, and criticizes a team of paleontologists for doing something every taxonomist does; study material housed in a museum. That’s right, Mr. Read snidely mocks the authors, who described a very cool new dinosaur species, for not undertaking a grand expedition to parts unknown to find this new species, instead discovering the species while re-examining specimens housed in the British Natural History Museum’s basement collections.

Nevermind the function of a museum is not just to provide a place for ignoramuses like Mr. Read to potentially learn something about natural history and gawk at fantastic displays, but also to actually house the raw data of biology; specimens. Or that people studying specimens in museums would much rather be exploring exotic new localities but are handcuffed by a critical lack of monetary support for taxonomy, which cuts our ability search for new specimens (which are then brought back to the museum and ultimately stored, although I guess that fact never occurred to Mr. Read either). Or indeed that the process of taxonomy is not as straightforward as looking at a single specimen (or pieces of a specimen as is the case in much of paleontology) and instantly recognizing it as unique and in need of a new name.

The true shame of all this is the fact that the blog network Mr. Read writes for is composed of a number of blogs which routinely write well-versed and well-researched pieces on science and technology (io9 & Gizmodo to be precise). How this fascinating story was forwarded onto Mr. Read and not to authors in those other fine networks who I’m sure could have done it justice is almost as outrageous as Mr. Read’s story itself.

Natural history collections are one of the most valuable resources we have as a society, providing a link to the world around us, and to believe that people shouldn’t be studying the material contained within them is like believing that libraries shouldn’t be used for fact checking. Oh, wait…

(If you want to see how science journalism SHOULD be done, I encourage you to read Science 2.0’s version of the story)

Ants & Architecture

Environment, Photography, Travel 9 Responses »

Mar 102011

The wife and I took a weekend off last month and headed down to Chicago to visit a friend, take in the sights, and enjoy a bit of a break. I must say that Chicago was one of the coolest big cities I’ve been to, with great architecture, plenty of great food (including the best pizza ever), and a first class entomological exhibit!

Yep, that's a live ant colony within the title sign, a great way to start an exhibit!

The Chicago Field Museum is currently exhibiting “The Romance of Ants“, which follows the life and career of resident myrmecologist Dr. Corrie Moreau. I had the chance to hear Dr. Moreau discuss her research during a recent visiting scientist seminar here at Guelph, so it was great to see and read about her career path. Did I mention that her entire entomological life was illustrated as a comic book? Because it is, and it is awesome!

The formicid scent trail leads through an excellent comic

You might recognize some familiar ant photos from the entomological blog-o-sphere: sprinkled between the comic frames were huge reproductions of Alex Wild’s fantastic photographs. The huge printing of these photos looked great, and really added to the feel of the exhibit by making you feel as if you were a part of the colony!

Art & Science as one

Overall it was a great exhibit, but I worry its position in the museum will cause a lot of people to miss it. Located in a dark corner room which looked like an old Western saloon on the outside, we were the only two in the exhibit for the entire 15-20 minutes it took to take in. The museum wasn’t overly busy despite being a Saturday morning, but there were quite a few people who I saw walk straight on by without recognizing that a great blending of science and art was lying only a few feet away (kind of like ants in everyday life). The exhibit is scheduled to run through the end of 2011, so if you’re in the area, I’d highly recommend checking it out!

I played tourist this trip and tried my hand at some architectural photography while we walked around town. Downtown Chicago features some really amazing architecture and sculptures, which made my attempts a little easier. It’s certainly a different style of photography than I’m used to, but it was great getting a few clicks in again!