Animal Parks

"Natural history collections, are among others, used for studies in biochemistry, genetics and ecology. Avoidance of the use of chemical substances is necessary to avoid loss or modification of the structure, chemical and genetic components of the specimens that reduce their scientific value and stability. The practice of preventive conservation is imperative, for the slowdown of chemical, mechanical and biological damage.
In natural history collections of fossils, minerals, rocks, stuffed animals and birds, animal tissues in ethanol, dried plants bottles etc,  damages observed include pyrite disease, delaminations, oxidations, discolourations, cracks, photomechanical and plastic damage. To avoid damage, it is necessary to control environmental parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, radiation and pollutants, provide proper storage condition and perform regular recording of the collections.
Preventive conservation becomes a real challenge in the case of fossil-bearing areas. Conservators are invited to in situ protect the objects from extreme weather variations and anthropogenic disasters. "

... at an Interactive Mini-Zoo SHERMAN ROSENFELD YOUTH ACTIVITIES SECTION ... To investigate this questio.n, one of us (Sherman Rosenfeld) designed a mini-zoo based on visitor activities. Later, both of us conducted a naturalistic study of the mini-zoo's casual visitors. ...

In 1967, philosopher Richard Rorty edited a volume with the programmatic title The Linguistic Turn. Since then, the social and cultural sciences have gone through several ›turns‹, e. g. the ›interpretative‹, ›iconic/pictorial‹, or the ›spatial turn‹. Such ›turns‹ stimulate new research perspectives and questions, as well as shifts in theory and method. In recent years, the ›material turn‹ is gaining prominence in the humanities and social sciences. The principle of ›thinking through things‹ and the claim that objects possess agency are especially provoking. This chapter explores the stimulating effects of the ›material turn‹ in the field of museum studies. Firstly, it recalls the early history of disciplines such as archaeology, cultural anthropology, folklore studies, and art history, which are essentially based on their involvement with material culture and on the establishment of the museum as a bourgeois institution. Secondly, it outlines the developments of the ›material turn‹ and its theoretical ambitions over the last decades. Thirdly, it discusses the theoretical and practical consequences of such a new perspective for University archives and collections, as well as for the public presentation of academic knowledge conveyed by objects and things.

As an academic discipline, the earth sciences generate, use, and retain vast quantities of objects. This ‘material archive’ exists, first and foremost, as a functional scientific resource; the objects that it contains were never intended to express culture. Since the earth sciences rely heavily on claims that its objects of study remain the same as they were in nature, it follows that the specimens contained in university earth science collections are treated as objective scientific evidence. In this sense, the material that is collected, used and retained by earth scientists may appear to be devoid of culture – passive, inert and neutral.

This thesis sets out to challenge these assumptions by treating university earth science objects and collections as material culture. In material culture studies, geological materials appear in a variety of different forms and contexts, however, such work has tended to focus on either their occurrence in the landscape, or their use as raw materials from which objects are made. Thus, while the earth sciences provide an abundant source of ‘material’ for material culture studies, rarely (if at all) do they seem to provide the culture. Furthermore, while the treatment of ‘natural’ objects as cultural artefacts has become increasingly popular in museology, much of this work has concentrated on the processes and practices that are enacted on these things in museums.
Museology has therefore tended to consider these things in what effectively corresponds to their retirement, meaning that with few exceptions, little attention has been paid to their active use as functional scientific objects.

This research explores the implications of treating university earth science objects and collections as material culture through the empirical investigation of contemporary object-related practices in UK earth science departments and university museums. As such this thesis addresses questions surrounding the relevance of existing theories and methods, in both material culture studies and museology, for exploring natural scientific objects and collections. These questions are approached through four thematic chapters concerned with the coming into being of earth science objects, their transformation into collection
items, their functions, and their mobility.