#grant museum

[museeeuuuum]

About a year ago now, I gave a talk as part of an emerging museums professionals panel. For the talk, we were given ten minutes to discuss our hopes for the future of the museum sector. My talk discussed the staff of these institutions and how I hope that they can thrive.

Staff are the lifeblood of the museum sector, but they are overworked and underpaid. I have converted my talk into a YouTube video, but decided to mix things up a bit: I invited 5 guests, museum professionals from Canada, the US, Finland, and the UK, to chat with me about their experiences in this sector.

Please watch this video and be sure to give the participants some love in the comment section!

[thylacine-dreams]

“World’s Largest Thylacine: Following a recent study into thylacine anatomy, this is believed to be the largest skull in any collection.”

From the Grant Museum of Zoology, London.

[londiniumlundene]

Grant Museum of Zoology

Robert Grant arrived at University College London as the first professor of Zoology and comparative anatomy, only to find he had no teaching materials. He began amassing a collection of specimens and dissection materials; upon his death in 1874, Grant left his collection to the University and the museum that was to bear his name. Over the years, subsequent curators added to the collection, with the museum absorbing specimens from other universities, zoos and hospitals.

The museum is wonderfully old-fashioned. Great glass cabinets are stuffed full of skeletons, taxidermy, formaldehyde jars, and diaphonized specimens. One cabinet contains bisected animal heads; another, examples of extinct animals – dodo bones, a quagga skeleton, and several preparations of marsupial wolves. A recent addition to the museum is the Micrarium, a cupboard-sized alcove filled with backlit microscope and lantern slides of the Earth’s smaller creatures.

One (near impossible to photograph) highlight of the collection is a large jar of preserved moles. No one is quite sure why eighteen moles should be crammed into the jar of preserving fluid – possible reasons include cost cutting by storing multiple specimens in one jar for transportation, a collection ready for dissection by anatomy students, or even the personal collection of one researcher.

[tinypiratebastard]

for mr @cabalakh malakh 

[moonandserpent]

Grant Museum of Zoology, London, 2017.  © Moon and Serpent

[dinodorks]

Skeleton of a quagga at the Grant Museum.