Oxford University Museum Of Natural History

A glass lantern teaching slide from our archive. We have had interns working over the last few summers to organise and digitise this massive collection of slides, and it is always exciting to see what is hiding in the drawers.

Summer is winding down and the interns have nearly all left us for the season, but we (and the Chanels) are missing them! Over the summer students worked on a variety of projects across research, collections and public engagement. 

Are you interested in having these be your views at work? We currently have several job openings here at the Museum: Visitor Services Assistant, Operations Assistant, Web and Communications Officer Learn more on our website: https://lnkd.in/eWtPp7cs

In this new blog post, we share insights from the eight months she spent assessing, cleaning and repairing some of the most at-risk and important material in the archive, as well as some unexpected surprises our paper conservator found along the way… https://lnkd.in/ep8kE8y4

Have you ever seen such a deliciously beautiful Museum?! Our head of vertebrate paleontology, the phenomenal Dr Emma Nicholls is not only mother of dinosaurs, but is also queen of cakes! She baked and built this beautiful homage to the Museum for our director's retirement party. Have you ever baked a cake or dessert inspired by the Museum or its collections? We'd love to see it!

New blog post titled 'Ubiquitous and Inconspicuous: The invisible history of the Museum's glass display cases' is now live on morethanadodo.com  In this post, Librarian and Archivist Danielle Czerkaszyn uses research collected by Helen Goulston (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD Candidate) to uncover the invisible history of OUMNH’s glass display cases and considers how they have evolved alongside the museum during its 160-year history.

Our imaginings of what dinosaurs looked like have changed drastically through the ages. This year we are celebrating 200 years since the first dinosaur (Megalosaurus bucklandii) was described by William Buckland. The Victorians imagined these ancient beasts to walk on all four when we now know they would have predominantly walked on their hind legs. The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs were created by Benjamin Hawkins and were unveiled to the public in 1854. We currently have a pop up display featuring the Megalosaurus jaw and their casts made through the centuries.

It's the circle of life... Learn all about how nutrients cycle through an ecosystem in our new display, featuring a fox being scavenged by insects, a carrion crow, and a lynx.

For the last few summers we have had interns working on digitising our glass lantern slides, once used for teaching. These glass slides would have been used in a lanternslide projector. This slide features a fossilised brittle sea star.

We have enjoyed hosting an array of interns here at the Museum this summer. Undergraduate students have the opportunity to apply to work on a variety of research and public engagement projects across the Museum. See what intern Zoe gets up to in a day at the Museum!