Volunteering

I started in my role as a Natural Science Volunteer today! I am based at the Museum Collection Centre (MCC) in Birmingham and am working on behalf of the Museums Trust. My work will involve carrying out condition reports, accessioning objects into the collection, taking photographs and generally bringing the catalogues up to date, with a view to setting up a new display at Thinktank in a few years time.

As a NatSciVol, I am mainly working with birds and mammals - taxidermied animals as well as skins, pelts, bones, and today, a piece of whale baleen! Already it has become such a varied place to work.

Today we had a more hands on tutorial and had a go at entering some details into the database, and started to use the paper records in order to determine what is already recorded and what isn't. Lukas and I had to examine skulls and jaw bones for certain pieces of information, enter these into the system, and then take measurements and photos of the specimen. It is not a job that can be rushed! Some pieces are very fragile, and it's not often you get given a skull from a dolphin as a gift..

I am due to work two days a week for the next three months, so I am planning on blogging at the end of each week. Here are some pics from today:

You can also keep up to date with the volunteering here.