Journal of Natural Science Collections ISSN 2053-1133 Volume 7 | 2020 The Natural Sciences Collections Association The Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA) is a UK based membership organisation and charity which is run by volunteers elected from the membership. NatSCA's mission is to promote and support natural science collections, the institutions that house them and the people that work with them, in order to improve collections care, understanding, accessibility and enjoy- ment for all. More information about NatSCA can be found online at: natsca.org Membership NatSCA membership is open to anyone with an interest in natural science and/or collections that contain natu- ral materials. There are many benefits of being a member, including; availability of bursaries, discounted annual conference rates, discounted training seminars and workshops, participation in the natural science collections community, friendly and helpful network for information and skill sharing and subscription to the Journal of Nat- ural Science Collections. Membership rates: Personal £20.00 Student/unwaged £15.00 Institutional (2 people) £40.00 Join online at: natsca.org/membership or contact our Membership Secretary ([email protected]). Journal of Natural Science Collections Aims and scope The Journal of Natural Science Collections is a place for those working with these collections to share projects and ways of working that will benefit the museum community. The Journal represents all areas of work with natural science collections, and includes articles about best practice and latest research across disci- plines, including conservation, curatorial methods, learning, exhibitions, and outreach. Articles in the Journal should be relevant and accessible to all of our diverse membership. Submissions are peer reviewed, resulting in high quality articles. Preparing your manuscript. Guidelines for preparing and submitting your manuscript are available on our website: www.natsca.org/ guidelines-for-authors If you have any queries or comments, please contact the Editor ([email protected]). More information about the Journal and our other publications can be found at: www.natsca.org/publications. Copyright and licensing The Journal of Natural Science Collections is published using a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Copyright is retained by the authors, but others may distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon published articles, even commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author(s) of the original work. Opinions expressed by the authors are entirely their own, and do not represent those of the Natural Science Collections Association unless otherwise stated. Editorial Board Paolo Viscardi: [email protected] Rob Huxley: [email protected] Lucie Mascord: [email protected] Bethany Palumbo: [email protected] Donna Young: [email protected] Matthew Parkes: [email protected] Front cover image: Fossil specimen of Sinosauropteryx (IVPP V12415) with fuzzy integument preserved. Slab = 127 cm long. ©IVPP See Smith, Wang, and Evans, 2020 (pp.3-16 of this volume). Editorial Jan Freedman Welcome to Volume 7 of the Journal of Natural Science Collections. I am delighted to stand in as the Editor for the greatest Journal for those working with natural science collections again. Thank you to the previous editor, Rachel Jennings, for all her handover notes and assistance. Thank you also to the Editorial Board for their expertise in finding peer reviewers for each of the articles, and to the many referees who have spent a lot of time ensuring that all the articles are to the highest quality and standard. This volume can be divided into three sections. First, we see articles focusing on museum practice. Smith and Qi provide background to their incredible successful exhibition, Dinosaurs of China, from the development to the public reactions. Jennings uses her experience to provide information about the process and advice for applying for an Article 60 certificate for CITES Annex A listed specimens. Finally, Jackson describes the process that the Tully House Museum and Art Gallery underwent to apply for Designation. This trio of articles all share relevant skills which readers of this journal can put into practice. The next section focuses on collections history, where three more articles explore the role of collections and collectors from the past. An important paper by Callaghan et al. provides a thorough update of all the taxonomic names of the historically significant Blaschka models. Hancock and Ryder detail the history, and rarity, of silver pins in entomology collections. Finally, Smith makes a valuable case for under-appreciated collections, which focuses on fungi, demonstrating the real value of all types of collections in museums. The final section concentrates on collections conservation. An interesting, and transferable, method using LEGO® to safely hold bound herbaria pages open, is given by Dupont and Prakesh. An extremely useful article by Holloway and Pinniger provides a guide on hoe to identify different Anthrenus Linnaeus, 1761 species in museum collections. Next, Muñoz-Saba et al. outline the best methods and procedures needed to keep the flesh eating beetle, Dermestes Linnaeus, 1758 to prepare osteological material. Allington-Jones describes the conservation of a meteorite specimen, which is unusual in its chemical make-up, providing difficult challenges. Finally Chitimia-Dobler and A. Dunlop describe a method to clean tick specimens using an ultra-sonic cleaner. I hope you enjoy this Volume, and find the articles interesting and relevant to your own roles. 2 View from the Chair Paolo Viscardi This will be the last view from this particular Chair, as I hope to be handing over the reins of NatSCA to Isla Gladstone in 2020. It has been an honour working on your behalf for the last few years, through some hard times in the sector and in society as a whole. 2019 has been yet another uncertain year, with the implications of Brexit still being identified. NatSCA has been helping to support the natural science collections sector by liaising with Defra to help inform them of the needs of museums with scientific collections with regards to Brexit & CITES legislation. To help address some of the other bigger picture issues surrounding the decline of subject specialist ex- pertise in the museums sector we have been working with other Subject Specialist Networks (SSNs). A large part of this work involves us being on the steering group for the SSN Consortium. This is an important group, as it joins together the voices of around 40 SSNs similar to NatSCA, amplifying the message that museum collections need knowledge to unlock their potential. Through the Consortium we have an opportunity to engage more effectively with sector bodies, and we have already helped inform the Art Fund and Arts Council England about how the wider museums sector is supported by specialist groups and how they as funders can better support the work we do. This has resulted in a new funding strand from the Art Fund and we are in discussion with Arts Council England about how SSNs might be better supported to increase capacity for developing and delivering resources for our members. We had good uptake of our conference bursaries this year, after increasing the award from a maximum of £100 to £250. Our 2019 Bill Pettit Memorial Award went to two projects. The Dorman Museum "Leo the Lion conservation project" and the Victoria Gallery, Liverpool "Primate skeleton conservation project". Both will have the results reported on our blog. Training delivered this year included "Finding Funds for Fossils, Ferns and Flamingos: how to secure money for museum collections” run in partnership with the World Museum Liverpool; a "Care and Conservation of Insect Collections" workshop was run in partnership with The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and "An introduction to mobilising your collection’s biodiversity data" workshop in partnership with Bristol Culture and NMH London. This training ties in with our aim of facilitating the integration of the UK national dispersed collections with the European Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) programme. DiSSCo looks to become an increasingly important initiative for mobilising collections data and improving access to collections around the UK and Europe. Our AGM and conference was on the theme of "Dead Interesting: Secrets of Collections Success" which was generously hosted by the National Museum of Ireland with additional tours kindly provided by the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland. At the AGM the membership voted for a proposed change in NatSCA's status to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). This is a step that many SSNs are undertaking since the CIO status was introduced by the Charities Commission in 2013, since it confers 'legal personality' allowing entry into contracts on behalf of the organisation rather than individual trustees. We had several committee members stepping down at the end of their term or due to capacity issues this year. I would very much like to thank Roberto Portela-Miguez, Miranda Lowe, Rachel Jennings, and Emma Nicholls for all their valuable efforts in supporting NatSCA over the years. While we're sad to lose such wonderful members of our committee, we are delighted to welcome Jen Gallichan, Glenn Roadley, Amanda Callaghan and Kirsty Lloyd who have joined us. Speaking of welcome additions,