HMNS staff working from home. On what? Science. Naturally.
As you may have seen on our social media pages, in the interest of the safety of both visitors and staff, the Houston Museum of Natural science has had to temporarily close its doors. So what is a Museum Collections Department to do during a time like this? Science!
Curators continue exploratory data analysis, research documentary material and search for artifacts for future installations and exhibitions. Many of you have met our Curator and resident expert of all things Anthropology, Dr. Dirk Van Tuerenhout. While the halls may be closed, Dirk can still be found researching objects and exploring new ideas for upcoming exhibits.
The collections database is being scrubbed, updated, corrected, and augmented. New cataloguing and accessioning records are being entered, renaming and attaching media files to artifact records, uploading and consolidating records from other data systems, all to improve access to the amazing information on our permanent collection.
Not all of the work being done by the Collections Department is immediately seen by the public. Sabrina and Gary have been using their time work on the collections database. By creating records, uploading images, and adding catalog records they help provide the resources that are helpful to researchers, educators, and future exhibit planning.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science has a little bit of almost everything in our permanent collection. With over 2.5 million specimens and artifacts, it takes a team of hard working passionate people to document each item, track each shipment, organize each exhibition and coordinate logistics for every item lent to another museum.
Exhibitions and Loans of artifacts are a very important part of the museum’s educational programming within our buildings and outreach events. Our Registrar for Loans, Eydie Rojas, is organizing the logistics for upcoming exhibitions: shipments, installation schedules, etc. And she is also working on preparing the files for past projects for the Archives.
Our Assistant Registrar, Kenneth Collins, is working on incoming loans while updating documentation, transferring data from emails to files and to our collections database. This process provides the curators with immediate access to more information while they work on research for future projects.
There’s a lot of coordination that goes into a museum’s Collections Department and this is where I come in. I’m the author of this blog post and also the Director of Collections. During this time it has been my job to guide, provide resources, and lead this wonderful group of professionals.
This is just a small snapshot of the total number of the hard working individuals in the Collections Department for the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Whether it be from home or in our offices, our visitors are what drives us to be a scientific institution of the first class. We miss seeing you in our halls and until we do again, know that we continue to work hard for you. Stay tuned for more exciting and interesting educational resources from the Collections Team here on Beyond Bones and our other social media outlets.
Though our physical doors are closed, our virtual doors remain open. Finding ways to creatively bring science to you is our highest priority. Your contributions matter today more than ever, as we strive to ensure that the museum is ready and able to welcome you back. Please GIVE TODAY to help support our mission of science education.
HMNS at Home is presented by Mitsubishi Corporation