Students become online curators

24 May 2019

Our @HerbertCurators twitter account will be taken over by a pair of students from the University of Warwick

Scarlett and Paolo have been tasked with choosing and researching a collection within the Herbert’s archives for their final year projects where they shall be presenting some of their findings to the public online.

Here they are introducing themselves and their chosen focus:

Scarlett Crow – 3rd year Biomedical Science

"For my project I chose to focus on the Dr Elliott collection of shells. While presenting as a large diverse collection of specimens, it was the personal aspect that truly caught my attention.

From the presentation using hand made matchboxes, to the vast collection of Dr Elliott’s personal diaries written in his later years, I believe the story behind the collection should be of just as much importance as the biological aspect.

Through my research I hope to bring to light the great importance of museum archives to the public eye and what it can provide to the scientific community. Digitising the inventory and providing photos for the digital archive I believe will go towards achieving this goal.

I look forward to working with the Herbert and showing off Dr Elliott’s collection to the public!"

Paolo Juan – 4th year Biological Sciences

"With my project, I decided to research an aspect of museum collections a bit different from shells – the taxidermy collection.

The sheer diversity of animals on display, the potential history lurking behind each specimen and the morbid fascination when dealing with these specimens will, I believe, make for a fascinating topic. I hope to not only analyse the contributions of taxidermy to research, but also to increase awareness of the role of taxidermy; why scientists still continue to create these specimens, especially important considering the increasing pressures on global biodiversity.

To this end, I have been photographing and collecting information on the taxidermies at Herbert, which you’ll be able to see on the Twitter account!

I am very excited to be sharing my work with you and the public!"

You can follow the curious curatorial tweets on the HerbertCurators twitter account. Make sure to give it a follow and retweet your favourite posts.