Biodiversity and Biocollections: Problem of Correspondence

This text is an English translation of those several sections of the original paper in Russian, where collection-related issues are considered. The full citation of the original paper is as following: Pavlinov I.Ya. 2016. [Bioraznoobrazie i biokollektsii: problema sootvetstvia]. In: Pavlinov I.Ya. (comp.). Aspects of Biodiversity. Archives of Zoological Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vol. 54, Pр. 733–786. Orientation of biology, as a natural science, on the study and explanation of the similarities and differences between organisms led in the second half of the 20th century to the recognition of a specifi c subject area of biological explorations, viz. biodiversity (BD). One of the important general scientifi c prerequisites for this shift was understanding that (at the level of ontology) the structured diversity of the living nature is its fundamental property equivocal to subjecting of some of its manifestations to certain laws. At the level of epistemology, this led to acknowledging that the “diversifi cationary” approach to description of the living beings is as justifi able as the before dominated “unifi cationary” one. This general trend has led to a signifi cant increase in the attention to BD. From a pragmatic perspective, its leitmotif was conservation of BD as a renewable resource, while from a scientifi c perspective the leitmotif was studying it was studying BD as a specifi c natural phenomenon. These two points of view are united by recognition of the need for scientific substantiation of BD conservation strategy, which implies the need for a detailed study of BD itself. At the level of ontology, one of the key problems in the study of BD (leaving aside the question of its genesis) is determination of its structure, which is interpreted as a manifestation of the structure of the Earth’s biota itself. With this, it is acknowledged that the subject area of empirical explorations is not the BD as a whole ( “Umgebung”) but its particular manifestations (“Umwelts”). It is proposed herewith to recognized, within the latter: fragments of BD (especially taxa and ecosystems), hierarchical levels of BD (primarily within- and interorganismal ones), and aspects of BD (before all taxonomic and meronomic ones). Attention is drawn to a new interpretation of bioinformatics as a discipline that studies the information support of BD explorations. An important fraction of this support are biocollections. The scientifi c value of collections means that they make it possible both empirical inferring and testing (verification) of the knowledge about BD. This makes biocollections, in their epistemological status, equivalent to experiments, and so makes studies of BD quite scientific. It is emphasized that the natural objects (naturalia), which are permanently kept in collections, contain primary (objective) information about BD, while information retrieved somehow from them is a secondary (subjective) one. Collection, as an information resource, serves as a research sample in the studies of BD. Collection pool, as the totality of all collection materials kept in repositories according to certain standards, can be treated as a general sample, and every single collection as a local sample. The main characteristic of collection-as-sample is its representativeness; so the basic strategy of development of the collection pool is to maximize its representativeness as a means to ensure correspondence of structure of biocollection pool to that of BD itself. The most fundamental characteristic of collection, as an information resource, is its scientific signifi cance. The following three main groups of more particular characteristics are distinguished: — the “proper” characteristics of every collection are its meaningfulness, informativeness, reliability, adequacy, documenting, systematicity, volume, structure, uniqueness, stability, lability; — the “external” characteristics of collection are resolution, usability, ethic constituent; — the “service” characteristics of collection are its museofication, storage system security, inclusion in metastructure, cost. In the contemporary world, development of the biocollection pool, as a specific resource for BD research, requires considerable organizational efforts, including work on their “information support” aimed at demonstrating the necessity of existence of the biocollections

Review of Things Great and Small

Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies, 2nd edition, by John E. Simmons is a helpful overview and guide for crafting museum collections management policies

Artifacts from the Anthropocene

My current body of work captures and displays a humanity manipulated geological history. I use and rework the discarded to build records of time, memory, and progress seen from the perspective of an uncertain future. By combining organic and synthetic materials I create moments fabricated in a modern dystopia. We enter the Anthropocene, the age of humans. Earth is ever-changing and, for the first time, one species is capable of leaving a worldwide impact

EKSISTENSI MUSEUM VIRTUAL MASA PANDEMI COVID- 19

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikanmuseum virtual yang saatini berkembang di Indonesia, baik berupa ruang perlombaan, ruang diskusi, ruangpertunjukan maupun wisata museum virtual. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskripsi kualitatif dengan pendekatan eksplorasi. Pengumpulan data menggunakan studi literatur dengan menelusuri berbagai laporan, publikasi jurnal, dan situs web. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa  pandemi covid telah mengakibatkan  sebagian besar museum diseluruh dunia ditutup untuk sementara bahkan secara permanen. Penutupan museum tersebut berakibat pada penurunan jumlah pengunjung dan penutupan museum, kendala pada pemeliharaan museum, dan peningkatan layanan digital museum.Dampak lain adalah kerugian finansial secara besar-besaran pada periode covid 19.Agar tetap bertahan, maka hampir seluruh museum mempromosikan museum virtual.Museum virtual dalam segala bentuknya, telah membuka pintu bagi pengunjung yang dapat mengunjungi museum tanpa mengenal batas ruang dan waktu

The Wonders of the Augsburg Cabinet: Three Ways of Experiencing a Document

Since even before Frohmann (2009) proposed his document analysis on the meaning of cabinets of curiosity, I have been fascinated with them. Their emergence in the 15th century (MacGregor, 2007) is also the tantalizing beginnings of the birth of the modern museum. In museum studies, we often ask what the meaning of the museum is today (Latham & Simmons, 2014); I believe that part of the answer to this question is in these curious compartmentalized pieces of furniture that held the wonders of the world and helped users make meaning a very long time ago. One can see examples of these cabinets scattered across the world and in various kinds of museums, but there are very few that exist today that also hold their original contents—those collected wonders chosen by the cabinets’ owners and/or creators. The Augsburg Cabinet in the Gustavianum, Uppsala, Sweden is one of those rarities. Finished in 1632, the cabinet exists, in all its glory, but so do about 1000 pieces that were contained in its original collection (Josefsson, 2014). When I first saw this cabinet, in 2016, in its current configuration on exhibit, it was an encounter filled with profound excitement and joy. Since then, I have been keen on working with it, analyzing it as a document. Taking an auto-hermeneutic approach (Gorichanaz, 2017), in March 2018, I recorded my in-the-moment experiences of the cabinet in three contexts: in the gallery, on a tour, and through a digital mediator. I then reflected on the three experiences of this single document through the themes that developed in my prior research (Latham, 2015) around experiencing “the real thing” in the museum, self, relation, presence, and surround and analyzed the transcripts using phenomenological methodologies. This paper outlines the exploratory process of data collection and analysis of my in-the-moment encounters with this document

Take that COVID! Positive Documents Emerging from the Museum Sector

Although the field of museology has discussed many concepts found in other positive disciplines, such as flow in positive psychology, the field itself has not yet developed a purposeful framework for positive museology. A long history of research in museum studies and on museal endeavors reveals aspects of a positive approach already exist but have yet to be woven together into a synthetic whole. In 2020-2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, museums themselves showed their positive strengths and virtues through documents such as social media and field-wide communication, revealing their capacity for a positive approach. This paper uses a developing framework for a positive museology as a starting point to exhibit the capacity of museums as sites for essential human flourishin

Marching on Together: the Future of Non-Profit Museums in a For-Profit World

This thesis proposes a model of increased collaboration among museums as an alternative to the commercialization of the museum field. Through a combination of internal and external factors, museums are finding it necessary to operate in a manner akin to that of commercial enterprises. This trend threatens to undermine the cultural and educational mission of museums. At the same time, the ability of museums to carry out their missions necessarily depends on a solid financial base. Collaboration, whether in the form of consortia or consolidated institutions, provides an avenue whereby museums can not only make more economical use of their resources, but do so in a manner that also furthers their work as cultural institutions

Creating an Ecology of Hope: Nature-Based Training to Increase Compassion and Collaboration in Building Sustainable Communities

In an increasingly technological world, the human connection with nature is falling behind. Acts of violence are more prevalent in media and mainstream news reports. Environmental concerns and issues are in the fore-front of today’s policy debates. Yet, professional development opportunities that are being provided to a quickly changing work force are becoming stagnate. If technology is constantly improving why would teaching methods remain stagnate? I was drawn to the connection of nature’s inherent adaptability and the human’s desire to maintain the status quo. I chose to explore this idea through a training CLC so that I may apply the theories of experiential learning and social change to a field that is indirectly aiding in maintaining the status quo. This study takes a deeper look into the collaborative efforts of a statewide organization in Texas, USA. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is the home organization for the Texas Children in Nature (TCiN) Network, which acts as a facilitator and coalition builder for individuals and organizations in the state of Texas that want to be a part of the Children in Nature movement. This study identifies strategies that work in building collaboration as well as ways in which the network can improve their capacity to collaborate. Professionals from a wide range of fields in the state of Texas were surveyed and observed throughout the process. The results of this study led me to identify and examine my own capabilities as a trainer and agent of social change. I was able to apply theories and frameworks to the work I was completing in the state of Texas

Dystopian Framework of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984: A Foucauldian Discourse Reading

This paper proposes that utopian/dystopian writing should be understood as contributions to an ongoing discourse of the socially conceivable. After determining the utopian genre historically and establishing the relevance of Foucauldian discourse to the study of utopian/dystopian literature, the paper provides a discursive reading of Thomas More’s Utopia, George Orwell’s 1984, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. These readings explore both the discursive functions of each text, as well as the functions of discourse within each different social order portrayed; focusing attention to discourses of social roles, education, and history. In conclusion, the paper treats the three texts not as separate contributions to a genre, but as elements of a continuous discourse. Although unbalanced and evolving, the discourse serves to map the boundaries of the social imagination – the socially perfected conditions, or dystopic inversions, that can or ‘should’ be imagined; hope for restitution and possibility for societies gone horribly wrong; and the inevitable forces involved in encouraging progress or hindering it. Considered in this manner, three observations emerge. The discourse of utopia/dystopia place gender and sexuality as principal forces of social stability and suggests that their manipulation is essential to maintaining alternate social orders. By contrast, the role of race in social context can neither be completely acknowledged nor challenged within the classic, Eurocentric utopian/dystopian writings. Thus, race is reduced to the margins, establishing it as a ‘normal,’ almost trivial category. Finally, while the discourse proposes systemic understandings and critiques of alternative social orders, it offers only transient, individualistic accounts of resistance or social change. In this sense, while utopic/dystopic texts are often viewed as socially and politically engaging tracts, ultimately, the discourse serves to endorse the social and political status quo