Keynote presentation given at Labcon 2012

Sharing Australia’s Science Heritage

Dr Elycia WallisManager, Online CollectionsMuseum Victoria

@elyw

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/705595/microscope-with-box-watson-routine-circa-1910

Introduction

The familiar part of museums: exhibitionsIt’s not what you can see: researchData deluge, local and global

Eastern Pygmy PossumImage: David Paul 

Source: Museum Victoria

Part 1.The familiar part of

museums

Australia’s largest public museum organisation550 EFT staff17 million collection items in 20,000m² storage2.5 million visitors / 460,000 education visitors annually6+ million online visitors (Google analytics)

Collections Research Exhibitions Programs

Elephant exhibition at Museum für Naturkunde, BerlinImage: Ely Wallis 

Sue the T. Rex at the Field Museum, ChicagoImage: Ely Wallis 

Wild at Melbourne Museum

World Wide Animal Viewers in Wild at Melbourne Museum

World Wide Animal Viewers in Wild at Melbourne Museum

Dynamic Earth at Melbourne Museum

3-d immersive theatre in Dynamic Earth

Education program: http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/education/education-programs/rock-camera-action/

http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/discoverycentre/dynamic-earth/

http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/current-exhibitions/600-million-years-victoria-evolves/

Education program: http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/education/education-programs/600-million-years-victoria-evolves/

600 million years in 60 seconds

The education program movie-making kit.Image: Jon Augier Source: Museum Victoria

Read about it: http://museumvictoria.com.au/about/mv-blog/dec-2011/active-science-education/

Education program: http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/education/education-programs/600-million-years-in-60-seconds/

Social media

Part 2.It’s not what you can see

but what you can’t

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thematthewblack/6950586208/

42,000 objects on display

From a collection of 7 million objects

That’s 0.006 of their collection

Wet collections at Museum für NaturkundeImage: Ely Wallis 

Read about it:http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_awe_of_natural_history_collections/http://seedmagazine.com/Saved_By_Science/sbs_slideshow.html

“The Waiting Room,” from the Saved by Science series by Justine Cooper.

Read about it:http://www.niwa.co.nz/news/%E2%80%98supergiant%E2%80%99-amphipods-discovered-7-kilometres-deep

Supergiant amphipod caught in the Kermadec Trench off New Zealand. Sources: Photo copyright of Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen, UK

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14616161http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm

Read about it: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/11/19/%E2%80%9Cnew%E2%80%9D-species-gather-dust-on-museum-shelves-for-21-years-before-being-described/#.UL2DYuSTx2B

“New” species gather dust on museum shelves for 21 years before being described

Ed Yong, November 19,

Discover Magazine

http://museumvictoria.com.au/about/mv-blog/nov-2012/gallery-of-the-grampians-survey/http://museumvictoria.com.au/about/mv-blog/nov-2012/secret-diary-of-a-field-trip/

Grampians Bioscan, November 2012Parks Victoria and Museum Victoria

Filming a fluorescing scorpionImage: Heath Warwick 

Mammal Curator Kevin Rowe with endangered heath mouseImage: Mark Norman 

Herpetologist and geneticist Jo Sumner with a stumpy tailImage: Steve Wright 

Invertebrate zoologists Richard Marchant and Ryan Duffy examining a collection trayImage: Mark Norman 

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/1267787/photograph-camp-at-trousers-point-flinders-island-1893

http://biodiversitysnapshots.net.au/

Education program: http://museumvictoria.com.au/education/education-kits/biodiversity-snapshots/

Read about it:http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/mv-field-guide-app/

Read about it:http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/mv-bunurong-app/

http://www.climatewatch.org.au/

http://www.redmap.org.au/

https://www.zooniverse.org/

Read about it:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/10/15/amateur-planet-hunters-find-a-world-with-a-four-star-rating/#.UL3xYuSTx2A

TV watching/listening was found to be the activity which took up most people's leisure time. On a daily basis 87% of Australians watched or listened to TV for an average of just under 3 hours (179 minutes), down slightly from the 1997 figure of 182 minutes. This means that in 2006, Australians aged 15 years and over spent a total of 42 million hours watching or listening to TV each day.

Read about it:http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/0/32049C1F6913E595CA257968000CB4B2?opendocument

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics

Part 3.The data deluge –

local and global

Example screen from collection database

Red kangaroo specimens in Museum Victoria’s collections

Red kangaroo specimens in all Australian museums collections

Heat map of Red kangaroo specimens in museum collections and including observations

http://www.ozcam.org.au/

All museum specimens from OZCAM

http://avh.ala.org.au/

http://ala.org.au/

Atlas of Living Australia concept diagram

http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Callocephalon+fimbriatum

http://biocache.ala.org.au/explore/your-area

http://www.ala.org.au/get-involved/

http://volunteer.ala.org.au/

Wet specimens held at the Natural History Museum in LondonImages: Ely Wallis

Platypus and echidna specimens in the Natural History Museum collections in London

http://bhl.ala.org.auhttp://biodiversitylibrary.org/

Image: Joe ColemanSource: Museum Victoria

Book scanning and rare books in MV library

Image: Jon AugierSource: Museum Victoria

http://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/

Atlas of Living Australia concept diagram

http://gbif.org

http://eol.org

…imagine for a moment that all the diversity of the world were finally revealed and then described, say one page to a species. (E.O. Wilson, 1992)

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/1788301/photograph-hope-macpherson-working-in-shell-bay-national-museum-of-victoria-melbourne-1948-damaged

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/260683/dust-silty-wood-dust-bag-of-circa-1990

Thank-you

Dr Elycia WallisManager, Online CollectionsMuseum Victoria

@elyw

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/705595/microscope-with-box-watson-routine-circa-1910