Stories from the Collections

As someone who has worked extensively within academia, I have had an opportunity to witness and explore various applications of educational resources, with a major focus on entomology collections and their research and outreach uses. My goal as a curator or collections manager lies within supporting a collection in a way that makes the specimens and information useful and available to both the institution and the broader research and public community. As I have participated in the organization, digitization, and public outreach associated with entomology collections, I have come to develop a strong value system that supports my interests in providing educational opportunities in a wide variety of disciplines and establishing baseline data for future research and policy decision-making.

Education is one of my most important values. Education starts with complete and properly interpreted information, presented in a format accessible to a wide range of audiences. Museums have an immense wealth of information that is normally not accessible to most people. As a curator, it is important to understand the collection’s mission statement and how that fits with the available resources and current internal activities. Proper and effective management planning needs to be in place before accommodating new projects that could stretch from database establishment to exhibition assessment. Often, the resources within a collection are not as established as many may hope.

In this, managing a collection starts with managing the policy and planning documentation. From there, the collection can focus on outreach through database and digitizing projects that can eventually accompany exhibition design. Before developing an exhibit about wasps found in Utah, USA, I first needed to understand the species of wasps and their distribution within the state. The reason I took on this project is that there is a lot of fear based on exaggerations of the natural behaviors of social wasps and bees. Obtaining and organizing this baseline data proved more difficult than imagined because of the lack of publicly and internally available records. I had to scour the Entomological Museum at Utah State’s collection drawer by drawer looking for Utah locality labels. I eventually had enough information to develop, implement, and subsequently analyze public perceptions via a traveling exhibit about wasps as one component of my Ph.D dissertation. It could not have been done without my direct access to the collections housed at the Utah State University Logan campus. The development experience solidified my ideas of public accessibility to collection item information. 

The exhibit reached communities across the state, and painted wasps in a more realistic and brighter light in relation to human life. This type of progress, though seemingly small and individualized in this case, is a direct outcome of broad education at all levels. Having access to information allows people to be more informed and better equipped to make decisions. In natural history collections, the specimens themselves provide much information about their environment, and their distributions can help guide people in understanding possible outcomes and changes as our planet changes faster than it has in recent geological history. By following many learning and interpretive theories, I strive to facilitate the development of critical thinking skills using collection materials. To do this, curators must do their best to present topics in an unbiased manner to allow the public to gain various perspectives, construct their own meanings, and continue to participate in our globally diverse community. 

As a curator or a collections manager, I make sure that each activity done in or with the collection aligns both with my values as well as the museums’ mission statement. The preservation and conservation of collections objects allows for the sustainable and appropriate perpetuation of the associated information. That information is crucial to both our education and our ability to address future challenges that humanity will face in the coming years.