Out of the Box: Sharing Strategies for Accessing Natural History Collections

Natural history collections can be shy beasts – tucked away in drawers and cabinets. We want to get them out and about to inspire more people to love them, use them and support them!

To do this the University of Canberra and CSIRO are holding a joint two-day symposium to bring together scientists, museum people, artists, citizen scientists and others who share an interest in promoting natural history collections to wider audiences. We are inviting you to come and share your ideas with us.

The symposium will take place at the University’s Ann Harding Conference Centre on 1-2 June 2017. Invited speakers will discuss art and natural history, citizen science, conservation of historic specimens and digital collection discovery, and our keynote speaker Deirdre Coleman of the University of Melbourne will delve into the complexities of historical taxonomy and connections between politics, personalities and natural history collections from the past. We will take these ideas forward into discussion sessions aimed at developing new, cross-disciplinary networks and relationships to get natural history collections Out of the Box. We will also have workshops on practical techniques for using and caring for natural history collections, tours of CSIRO collections, lunchtime displays of natural history inspired art and other projects and a Lightning Talk session.

Registration is $176, with $88 for concession card holders, plus an optional dinner at the Thai Chiang Rai restaurant on the evening of June 1 ($27.80). To view the program and register see the website at http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/cccr/events/outofthebox/

To enquire about doing a Lightning talk, or featuring art, specimens or other project materials in the lunchtime displays, contact Alison.wain@canberra.edu.au