Interested in learning more about museum practices? Whether you are a student, museum professional, academic, or other researcher, these resources provide useful information to help guide you. If you have questions that are not answered here, contact collections@americanornithology.org.
Museum Training
Do you want to learn to work with bird specimens and their data? Are you interested in specific preparations?
Museum collections may offer opportunities to volunteer, intern, or otherwise get involved. Students at universities or colleges with collections may get credit or paid positions to assist with specimen curation. To see if there is a museum collection in your local area, browse the Global Registry of Scientific Collections.
Online resources provide documents and videos geared toward training in different aspects of museum-based science and education. These include specimen preparation, data management and use, georeferencing, and curatorial protocols. Here is a partial list of sites and guides, some of which include links to other helpful resources.
Working with Specimens:
- Beaty Biodiversity Museum: Working with Birds
- Carnegie Museum Workshop (1989 AOU meeting) on Bird Specimen Preparation (PDF)
- Slater Museum of Natural History: Preparing a Bird Skin (PDF)
- Slater Museum of Natural History: Resources for Specimen Preparation
- University of Alaska Museum of the North: Preparing a Bird Skin
- University of Kansas and Smithsonian Institution: Bird Fluid Specimen Procedures (PDF)
- University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrates: Preparing a Bird Skeleton (PDF)
- How to Build a Drying Box for Specimens
Working with Data:
- Making Bird Specimen Data More Consistent, Accessible, and Informative (video)
- How to use Arctos for Research, Education, and Collection Management (webinars)
- Georeferencing Guidelines and Tutorials
- Working with GBIF data (blog)
Museums in Undergraduate Education:
- Advancing Integration of Museum Collections (Aim-UP!)
- Biodiversity Literacy (BLUE)
- Biological Collections Ecology and Evolution Network (BCEENET)
- Integrated Digitized Biocollections
Meetings and Workshops
Meetings and workshops are a great way to become engaged and interact with museum professionals, learn about new techniques, stay updated on permit regulations, and get guidance on collection management policies and protocols. The AOS Collections Committee periodically sponsors workshops or symposia at the annual American Ornithological Society meeting. Other societies and organizations also sponsor meetings that are directed toward the museum community.
Visit the following sites for upcoming meetings, workshops, or other collection-related events.