Museums, Herbaria, Biodiversity, Conservation and the Future of Taxonomy

Abstract

Few of the older generation of biologists (myself included), natural historians and taxonomists would not have been impressed by and marvelled at the profusion of preserved specimens on view at almost any natural history museum up until the 1960s. However, as anyone who has recently visited a big natural history museum will have noted, such displays are becoming increasingly rare and now are more or less limited to provincial establishments or museums in certain Eastern European and developing countries. Displays that simply show large numbers of stuffed, pickled or pinned specimens are now deemed to be outdated in the view of most modern museum exhibition managers who instead often attempt to present grander themes and overviews utilizing a good deal of high technology, although all too often a minimum number of specimens. While there can be little doubt that good photographs and videos of living organisms can greatly enhance the impact and meaning of a museum display, presentations that seem to attempt to minimize the number of genuine specimens on display place the visitor at an even greater distance from the organisms themselves. Modern `high-tech’ presentations may or may not be more educational but without doubt they hide much of the individuality of a collection’s treasures. Further, these changes are not restricted to the more obvious public display areas but are also mirrored by changing approaches to the organization and utilization of the all important research collections that major museums hold safe.

ArticleNote

.. even though museums are primary sources of information on species and even though we are in the ‘information age’, automation of museums’ major sources of information on species, their collections and their libraries, lags a generation or more behind current technology.

(Feldman and Manning, 1992)