Curated and digitised collection of Carabidae (ground beetles)

George Seddon-Roberts, a John Innes Centre PhD student completed his PIPS at Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum) in Cardiff as he wanted to gain practical work experience in curation within the museum sector.

His placement challenge was to curate and digitise a collection drawer of Carabidae (ground beetles) collected by John Henry Salter (1862-1942) between 1923 and 1942 in Ceredigion. There were approximately three hundred card mounted specimens without locality or species identification labels. His work included data acquisition and data entry alongside imaging tasks and general curation. Learning about the standards for curation of natural science collections and gaining a deeper understanding of how museums work was greatly valued by George. His notable highlights include an outreach experience when he curated a display for a public engagement event and acquiring funding to attend the Natural Science Collections Association (NatSCA) Conference and AGM in Oxford.

George experienced great teamwork across long-standing museum staff, students and volunteers plus had the opportunity to present the outcomes of his work in a department meeting. This placement experience gave George an increased awareness and understanding of the commercial side of museums and the strategic issues they face.

His blog for NatSCA illustrates the size of his challenge and the end result of transforming unlabelled specimens into a curated and digitised collection of specimens accessible for the future.

George’s placement has solidified his interest in a career in the museum sector.