Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Currently I am learning a lot from the Smithsonian NMNH Vertebrate Zoology Department’s Bird Division (Christopher Milensky, Christina Gebhard, Brian Schmidt, and Jacob Saucier) about the care and management of the museum’s bird collection. So far I have:
Transcribed written accession numbers for specimens into Excel spreadsheets
Hand wrote identification tags and attached them to the specimens legs, or wings when applicable
Labeled boxes of specimens from the Osteology Prep Lab (OPL)
Numbered each bone of the specimens from OPL with their identification number to prevent confusion when researchers compare multiple bones from different specimens
Handled inter-museum loans which included locating specimens, cross-referencing the information sent to us for returns, and packaging the specimens for shipment
Filed proper documentation for the US Fish and Wildlife Service for shipping and receiving specimens
Prepared Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) and Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) wings for a curator’s research collection
Created tags for new wet specimens (Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture eyes, heads, and feet) and added them to the collection at the Smithsonian’s Museum Support Center (MSC)
Filled new wet specimen containers with 70% alcohol solution for long term preservation
Prepared bird skeletons to be sent to OPL for the dermestid beetles to clean off
Checked in new specimens and their tissue samples into museum’s collection
Professional Certification: Care and Management of Natural History Collections
I took a 40 hour postgraduate course in August of 2021 through Transmitting Science based in Spain. The course was taught by Dr. Greg McDonald (Bureau of Land Management, United States) and John E. Simmons (Museologica, United States) and is equivalent to 2 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System). I learned many things throughout the duration of this course, including: the history and theory of museum collecting and management, proper documentation, the collection and digitization of records, materials for collection, caring for dry and wet collections, common agents of deterioration and how to combat them, and proper storage techniques.
Coe College Bailey Museum
As an undergrad, from January of 2017 until I graduated May of 2018, I brought the Coe College Bailey Museum back to life.
Due to many building moves and neglect, the collection sat in boxes and random drawers, untouched, disorganized, and unusable for many years. When my advisor, Dr. Jesse Ellis - a brand new faculty member at the time, bemoaned about the museum’s sad state, I volunteered to undertake the massive project. With a decrepit catalogue that had not been written in since the 1950’s as my only source of records (at the time), I embarked on a journey all over campus - tracking down the specimens this book claimed we had through whispers and rumors of faculty members across various departments.
The specimens varied wildly - a whale vertebrae to hummingbird eggs, raccoon skins to an entire herbarium, sherds from Greece to human fetal tissue samples. They were also tucked in various places everywhere - a glass encased pheasant scene in the maintenance office, large mammal skulls and fish taxidermies in Art Department classrooms, a mammoth tooth in a cardboard box in a cabinet along side boxes of whiteboard markers and erasers.
Sometimes I would find specimens that were not recorded in the Bailey Museum book and had to hunt down their records in much the same way. Like when I found a fully articulated skeleton of a toddler and when I mentioned it’s lack of records to an assisting professor (not understanding the significance at the time, it was clearly used in teaching so I thought there was no need to be alarmed), every faculty member from every department became involved in a campus wide search for that documentation until they were found a few hours later in a file cabinet in an unused classroom in the Anthropology building.
Once majority of the disassociation of specimens and records were reunited, I was able to digitize the catalogue and update it to include all of the random emails and letters showing donations and loans the museum had gotten since the 1950’s. I enlisted the help of two other students who were aware of my adventures and wanted to work with me. I assigned tasks and planned bi-weekly meetings with the interested faculty members to keep them up to date on the museum’s condition. I crafted an action plan for the museum after reading up on museum care and management so everyone involved and future students would know what had been done, where to find that information, and what still needed to be done.
I was also able to show off the museum for Playground of Science in the fall of 2017. The Playground of Science is a mid-October weekend event where local school-aged children and their parents visit each of the science departments to learn about science with a festive Halloween spirit. The Biology Department always puts on three rooms: The Bone Room (where kids can look at our teaching skeletons and learn about bones), the Creepy Crawlies room (where they get to see and, if they are brave enough, hold our Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches), and The Glow Room (a black light lit room where kids get to see fish and bacteria glow). I convinced the Biology Department to add the museum as a fourth room. With help from my friends, I was able to select our finest specimens, display them, write up information about the specimen and its species, and place some dramatic lighting and music to keep the festive ambiance. Children and adults alike gazed at the Bailey Collection with wonder and elation - whether it was looking at the snakes in our wet collection, feeling pelts, getting to see a bat up close, or learning about pangolins, it seemed like everyone was captivated. I received many compliments from visitors and faculty members, questions from parents asking about the biology program, and kids wanting to learn more about the animals they got to see and touch. It was, and still is, one of the proudest moments of my life.