Aren't museums just spaces full of collecting things, organised neatly into categories and stored in their boxes? Aren't museums just tourist attractions?
NO! Museums are research institutions, educational facilities and incredible international resources as well as serving their obvious role in public engagement.
I am lucky enough to be studying at the Natural History Museum in London and I'm aware that many people aren't even aware that any science at all takes place there: "isn't that the dinosaur museum?!" The opening of the Darwin Centre aimed to make the museum's science a more integral part of the public offer, and seems to be succeeding (but there is still a long way to go yet).
So why do we have museums? Why is it that the government funds such institutions? What is their role?
The NHM's primary role is as a store of one of the most important collections of biological and geological specimens in the world.
These collections are not static either! They are sources of vital information about the diversity of living things, their relationships and characteristics. We can use them for morphological data, sources of DNA (the museum also maintains a collection of frozen DNA) and the maintenance and curation of collections is critical for the work of taxonomy (the naming of living things) as all species must be represented by a particular 'type' specimen which must be deposited in a museum to allow study by scientists.
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