Museums in the Information Age: Evolution or Extinction

On Wednesday 21st November 2012, I attended a lively debate on "Museums in the Information Age: Evolution or Extinction?", held at the Science Museum, London, as part of the Leicester Exchanges series. The event has been reported in several reviews, including a detailed analysis by Liz Lightfoot.

The panel included Ian Blatchford (Director, Science Museum Group), Carole Souter CBE (Chief Executive, Heritage Lottery Fund) and Ross Parry (School of Museums Studies, University of Leicester), and  was chaired by Prof  Sir Robert Burgess, Vice-Chancellor of Leicester University

The discussion was wide ranging and stimulating. Much of it related to the ability of digitisation to improve access, and whether increased page views were linked to increased or decreased footfall. Ian Blatchford believed strongly in digitisation and summed it up as “It breaks up the cosy club. Something still lurks in the museum world which I call the grand connoisseurial view. There was a time when only a select number of people knew where to find the archives and so they had access to material for their PhDs. Now ordinary people can access amazing archives and that is just as important as what actually happens in museums."

Despite the wide ranging nature of the discussion, I felt it largely missed the important opportunity that digitisation provides - namely the opportunity to allow the (digital) objects we care for to be reused in all manner of ways far beyond our own imaginations. Just because we curate and care for the objects, it doesn't give us the exclusive right to their interpretation.

The real future is in web services - communication between  electronic devices over the world wide web. The British Geological Survey already uses Web Services to make a variety of map, dictionary and lexicon type data freely available. A number of museums are starting to provide similar access to their collections, frequently using APIs (Application Programming Interface). Key examples include the V&A, London; the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Web services will provide anyone anywhere with the means to devise their own exhibitions using selected items from the world's major collections. What better way is there of demonstrating to our funders that our collections really have an impact?

The Yorkshire Museum, and John Phillips

“Educated in no college I have professed geology in three universities and in each

 have found this branch of science firmly supported by scholars, philosophers, and divines."

There are many famous names associated with the history of the Yorkshire Museum (the museum itself was founded to house the collection of fossil bones from Kirkdale cave, famously studied by William Buckland), but one that is not widely known outside geological circles is that of John Phillips.

Phillips was the nephew of William “Strata” Smith and came to Yorkshire with him in 1819 where he helped Smith as he travelled the countryside seeking work as a surveyor. Phillips showed a keen aptitude for arranging the collections of local museums, and in 1826 took up the post of Keeper of The Yorkshire Museum, which he held for many years.

A list of his accomplishments throughout his career is long, and it has already been commented that “it is amazing to think that he was able to accomplish anything other than write during the whole of his lifetime”[1]!
In particular, to mention but a few things, he:
·         Worked out the structure of the rocks found on the coast and in the dales of Yorkshire, and published these in two books in 1829 and 1836.
·         Was a founder member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and was instrumental in organising it’s inaugural meeting in York in 1831
·         Introduced the term Mesozoic – the “middle age” of life on earth
·         Helped in the foundation and arrangement of the University Museum of Oxford in 1859
·         Carried out work for the (then quite recently formed) British Geological Survey, studying the Palaeozoic fossils of Devon, Cornwall and West Somerset.
·         Taught geology in three universities, in London, Oxford and Dublin, all with no formal education beyond the age of 15!

The JISC 3d Fossil Types Online team has just returned from a  week long visit to the museum, and we were lucky enough to be able to work with a number of the original specimens that Phillips collected nearly 200 years ago and subsequently illustrated in his book, Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire. 

One such specimen shown below is Hamites phillipsi. The work being done on the Fossil Types Online project will help to increase the visibility of specimens like these to a worldwide audience.

Simon Harris

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[1] Sheppard, T. John Phillips, Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 1933, v.22; p153-187. doi: 10.1144/pygs.22.3.153

Not just labels - potted histories?

The JISC GB/3D Type Fossils Online project is not solely about fossils – we are also photographing any historical labels which are associated with the specimen, like those that you see in the example below

The labels affixed to the back of this specimen carry a “potted history” of the fossil, and tell us a lot of things, such as:

·         The original date, collector and location

·         The specimen has been renumbered at least twice – we might find these old numbers referred to in old accession registers or catalogues

·         The specimen has been recognised as the type of it's species, and assigned a new name, in this case Vetacapsula hemingwayi

·         It has been figured or cited, in two  Journal articles

We already store much of this information on our publicly accessible database, PalaeoSaurus so why bother to photograph it again? Well, some of the reasons include:

·         As a safeguard against mistakes made when transcribing the data – although we are as careful as possible, mistakes may have been made in the past

·         Being able to examine a sample of the handwriting of a particular known collector or curator can prove extremely valuable in identifying other unknown specimens

·         To protect against loss – old labels may not be on archival paper, or written with archival ink, or they may simply fall off the specimen and become lost

We hope that this has provided an insight into another part of our process. In case you were wondering, Vetacapsula hemingwayi is the name given to the egg-case of a prehistoric shark. Their appearance, coupled with the fact that they were frequently found associated with fossil plants in the Coal Measures rocks, meant that for many years it was believed that they were some kind of plant fossil.

Simon Harris

Stunning 3D fossil videos - reach out and catch them!

The "soft launch" of the GB3D Type fossils online project web portal is planned to coincide with the Lyme Regis fossil festival in May 2013, but before then we have lots of stunning 3D digital fossil models that we would like to share with everyone. Chris Wardle at the British Geological Survey (BGS) has taken some of our more interesting 3D models and turned them into YouTube videos. He has done two versions - one where the fossils are shown as rotating fossils in 2D, and one where they are shown as rotating fossils in 3D anaglyphs. You will need red - blue glasses to see these properly - but some of the fossils are stunning. You feel as if you can reach out and catch them!

Link to 3D anaglyph rotating fossil video

Link to 2D rotating fossil video

Manchester Museum

A couple of weeks ago the mobile team went to the beautiful Manchester Museum, I underline beautiful as there were many interesting things to see and we didn't have enough time to view it all;  as usual we were in a hurry to photograph as many types as possible!

Unfortunately there wasn't enough time  to record all the fossil types in the Museum (more than 200), so we had to prioritise the fossils to be recorded, a thing which is always better to avoid and we don't like doing!

We've taken lots of good picture of the Plesiosaur on display, the specimen is too big for our laser scanner and the exhibition display didn't make the access easy, as it is on the floor underneath a 70 cm tall glass! But we hope the photos will help us creating a decent 3 D photogrammetric model.

In the end we managed to scan most of the Buckman Ammonite Collection and photograph a good variety of plants, trilobites, bivalves, cephalopods, insects and fishes, only some bivalves and gastropods were left apart... Time is running out and we must be on the road again, and who knows, we can always come back!

Just one folklore note about this trip: as we looked for  accommodation near the Manchester Museum, we ended up next to the curry mile! Although it's true that life is not all about fossils, an entire week of curry dinners have heavily tested the team! Is there any real English food restaurant left in Britain?   

Michela Contessi

(GB3D Mobile Team)

A visit to Liverpool, and a large fossil!

World Museum, Liverpool

A little while ago  the JISC GB3D fossils team were at the World Museum, Liverpool. As well as the more "normal" sized fossils, a couple of fossils presented a little problem.....

Chirotherium storetonense

This is a specimen of Chirotherium storetonense (the "hand-beast" of Storeton) - it is currently on display in the geology gallery in the museum. The slab weighs over a tonne, so moving it for photography in the available time was out of the question. Additionally, the gallery is open to the public every day, so we would not be able to set up lights and tripods without disturbing access.

We hope to be able to solve this problem through the use of photogrammetry software, where we will use several photographs taken from different angles to create a model of the specimen - we will update this post when we have some results.

Simon Harris

(GB3D Mobile Team)

Cambridge University Museum of Zoology

The mobile digitalization team was in Cambridge on the 14th of November, visiting the Cambridge Zoological Museum. Only 11 types are held there, but some are very nice specimens: two of the most complete Lower Carboniferous reptiles and a Cretaceous turtle, with the skull completely and nicely preserved! Nothing the size of a dinosaur, but let’s say that we encountered some of its smaller ancestors!

Michela scanning a type in the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge

Time is always running fast when you have only a day in Cambridge, but we managed to have a quick look through the Sedgwick Museum which is always fascinating to see (it was our lunchtime Mike, don’t worry, we worked as much as we could!), and we met the Cambridge digitisation team. Like us, Hilary (scanning) and Lindsey (photographing) are digitising the type collections of the Sedgwick Museum, the they showed us hundreds of boxes with types: it can seem an easy and quick job, but it is never as you would expected it! We also exchanged some useful information about common problems we had and tricks to solve them, I won’t reveal you the latter, you know we still have to keep a little mystery around the final product you will see on the website! 

Simon at work with the Canon EOS5D

Michela Contessi

(GB3D - Mobile digitization team)