Museum news from BRLSI Curator and Collections Manager Matt Williams:
15/4/2008
Following a visit to the excellent Torquay Museum (an organisation with a history and origins very similar to our own) I have been working out a way to move display cases into a space which is accessed by a stair case with a low roof, the answer; cut the legs off and re-attach them in the gallery! This is just another way to make the BRLSI’s collections more accessible and will allow Nature Collected to be shown in an even wider variety of Museum venues. You can visit the web site of Torquay Museum here.
The volunteer team are constantly working to improve the conservation, cataloguing, documentation and accessibility of the collections. This work enables us to better understand how the BRLSI’s museum library and archives have grown and the relevance they continue to have to the City of Bath and beyond. I will be updating this page more regularly from now on, so over the coming weeks and months please visit this page for up to date news from the collections.
25/3/2008
Late in 2007 an independent evaluation of Nature Collected: a touring exhibition was commissioned using funding from Renaissance in the Regions.
This report is now available to read and a copy is being kept in the office for your benefit, please enquire with Brenda, Angela or Carol to see this reference copy.
Some quotes from the report are:
“Nature Collected is a highly successful collaborative project which has proved very popular with the public”
"Nature Collected provides a case study for a sucessful regional collaboration that has resulted in very positive outcomes for all partners"
If you want to visit Nature collected the current touring schedule is:
BRISTOL CITY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY 16 Nov 2007—17 May 2008
TORQUAY MUSEUM 24 May 2008— 4 October 2008
DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM, DORCHESTER 7 Feb 2009—18 April 2009
ROYAL CORNWALL MUSEUM, TRURO 13 June 2009—19 Sept 2009
Pictured right are some of the BRLSI specimens that are featured in the exhibition, from top down:
• the extinct passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius;
• a coco de mer, the largest seed in the world [this specimen over 40 cm across];
• necklaces made out of snake and fish vertebrae from Africa;
• sea shells arranged within a mahogany case to create a picture
21/7/2007
Nature Collected: A touring Exhibition
Opening at the BRLSI 22nd September
Produced in partnership by Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, supported by Renaissance in the Regions.
“Nature Collected” is our new touring natural history exhibition featuring objects and artefacts from across the South West region. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution have worked in partnership with Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (PCMAG) to produce an exhibition that helps to explain how, why and what people collect from nature.
Helen Fothergill (Keeper of Natural History, PCMAG), Jan Freedman (Assistant Keeper of Natural History, PCMAG) and I have visited museums in Bristol, Weston-super-Mare, Taunton, Torquay, Exeter and Truro; trawling collections and quizzing curators to find specimens and stories that tell the story of natural history collecting through time.
At the core of the exhibition are items from the BRLSI and PCMAG collections. The specimens chosen tell the story of the collectors and their motivations and how attitudes have changed through time. A seven foot long Narwhal tusk, which can be lifted to feel its weight, helps explain how collecting has dispelled the myth of the unicorn in the 17th century. Another example of the type of thing a visitor might expect to encounter at the exhibition is the extinct passenger pigeon (also from the BRLSI collections, see right). The idea is to give visitors an understanding of the way in which natural history collections tie in to our modern understanding of ecology, conservation and extinction.
The exhibition was opened in Plymouth on the 6th July and I have promoted it with talks in Bristol, Plymouth and here in Bath. Now we just need to get it ready to tour!
The exhibition is financially supported by Renaissance in the Regions (a programme to transform England’s regional museums into great centres of life and learning fit for the 21st century, with strategic direction from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and will tour the South West of England for the next two years.
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