Is it possible to form a parasocial relationship to a museum object? Sources point to yes

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@nathistconservator
Is it possible to form a parasocial relationship to a museum object? Sources point to yes

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How I sleep knowing I always cite my sources:
(First image from the film Drip Dippy Donald (1948); second image from season 4, episode 3 of the Simpsons, “Homer the Heretic” (1992).)
I have long been obsessed with Blaschka glass models, plant and marine life both, and this is by far the most I've seen at once. I can't stop thinking about how cool it would be to get versions of the magnified cross sections as beaded jewelry
top five ways to conclude your thesis
so yeah
and I stand by that
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you get it now right
call me with questions I really want to talk about this more please please please
updated collection
that is all

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Ah, yes. Sources from the 17th century, in my uuuh... to-be 2026 paper.
(e.g. Ceruti, 1622; Imperato, 1599; Legati, 1677; Ruysch et al., 1710; Worm, 1655).
Honourable mentions to Charles Waterton who also gets a mention in the text but whose text was from the early 1800s.
Waterton, C. (1825). Wanderings in South America, the North-west of the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824. With Original Instructions for the perfect preservation of Birds, etc. For Cabinets of Natural History.
It's fun to get to play with historic sources when every other field of study puts a ton of weight on recent research. Well uhh you see the thing is that 'recent research' in this field doesn't exist so I need to use the primary sources... from uuuh... the birth of science...
Sources:
Ceruti, B. (1622). Musaeum Franc. Calceolari iun. Veronensis. https://archive.org/details/MusaeumFranc.CalceolariIun.Veronensis/page/n731/mode/thumb
Imperato, F. (1599). Dell’historia natvrale di Ferrante Imperato napoletano libri XXVIII: nella qvale ordinatamente si tratta della diuersa condition di miniere e pietre: Con alcune historie di piante & animali, sin’hora non date in luce.
Legati, L. (1677). Museo Cospiano annesso a quello del famoso Ulisse Aldrovandi e donato alla sua patria dall’illustrissimo signor Ferdinando Cospi patrizio di Bologna e senatore cavaliere commendatore di S. Stefano, Balì d’Arezzo, e march. Di Petriolo, fra’ gli Accademici Gelati il fedele, e principe al presente de’ medisimi. https://archive.org/details/museocospianoann00lega/page/n29/mode/2up
Ruysch, F., Bidloo, L., Coster, L., & Hüyberts, C. (with Smithsonian Libraries). (1710). Frederici Ruischii anatom. & botanices professoris ... Thesaurus animalium primus: Cum figuris aeneis = Het eerste cabinet der dieren. Amstelaedami : Apud Joannem Wolters. http://archive.org/details/fredericiruischi00ruys
Worm, O. (1655). Museum Wormianum, seu, Historia rerum rariorum: Tam naturalium, quam artificialium, tam domesticarum, quam exoticarum, quae Hafniae Danorum in aedibus authoris servantur. https://archive.org/details/gri_museumwormia00worm/page/n27/mode/2up
Reading through a collection rapport for my thesis and the author is like: "It's not been possible to access the collection, but through dialogue with current and previous collection managers it is determined that the collection is in good condition; and, since the items have been kept in cabinets, one may assume that individual specimens are clean and undamaged". Let's all just close our eyes and imagine that everything is the way it's supposed to be and nothing ever happens behind closed doors. Kind of crying laughing about it. Sure, let's imagine that the collection is in excellent condition. The collection that is inaccessible due to the mess in the collection storage rooms. The storage rooms that don't have a regular cleaning schedule. Let's just pretend nothing has happened since the previous collection manager(s) left their position.
Ive spent like 5 hours reading PDFs today and learned very little of use. Oh well.
This week's work, and the next:
This week was slow going. I've mostly been e-mailing people: I still need to find whoever knows anything about the collection journal, or find out if they exist at all. I've yet to put up my climate monitors, a task which is ostensibly late for me to do (though not disastrously so), and I've still my task of 'establish rapport with my supervisor'. However, I did get my thoughts together to book a meeting with him, and I've managed to book several other meetings afterward, which is great news! So, hopefully I'll be able to work more consistently now that I've kickstarted that collaboration.
Next week will surely be more e-mails, but I have gotten some good texts to read. And I've a sort of "homework" for the next couple supervisor meetings, which will hopefully encourage me to keep my momentum.
For now I'm hoping to hear from the meteorite expert, whom last had anything to do with the collection in 2015. I hope he hasn't forgotten where or who is responsible for those loaned specimens in the past decade...
I'll be taking pictures of the collection space tomorrow when I finally set up my climate monitors, but they likely won't be great. Firstly, the collection space is a mess, and secondly, I'm not taking documentation-grade photos, and I'm using an old camera for it. But the photos will be there, and I will be sure to share them.
Realising you forgot to email someone in time for an appointment so suddenly you're unable to procure (some of) the items that you need for said appointment :'''')) it's fine I'll have to put up pest monitoring traps later.... sigh...

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My thesis project has officially begun! I'm working with an old mineralogy- and geology teaching collection at a local university.
So far I have only briefly looked through the collection storage facilities, and that may be a very generous description. Water damage(s), tempterature fluctuations, pests, no shelves, containers precariously positioned on pallets and the like... And so on. I'll be setting up climate monitors some time in the coming week, while I figure out which rooms require what kind of attention, as well as getting an idea of exactly how extensive potential damages are - there's a lot of shelves in this collection, and any of of them may or may not be full of damaged specimens that I have not yet been able to see.
The university wants to eventually move the collection into one location at the moment, but the room they want to move the collection into is one of aforementioned water-damaged rooms. I'll have to see if I can present a convincing argument in the form of "Please Do Not" by the end of this process, which hopefully shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I've got a couple things to do in the coming weeks, mostly consisting of 'setting up climate monitors' and 'emails'. I need to figure out who may have access to the old collection journals. My biggest mystery yet...
I set up a dreamwidth recently to help me better manage a "professional" presence online, so I will start being a lot more liberal with reblogging and commenting on tumblr posts from now on. I will crosspost (or mostly crosspost) between here and dreamwidth when I do make original posts, or I drop a thesis update.
I'm reading about microscope slide conservation right now for a project I'll be working on, and look at this thing. This parasitology specimen goes really crazy:
Image of a cestode specimen slide mounted on blue glass, no coverslip, from Schmid, T., Hidde, J., Grünier, S., Jungnickel, R., Dariz, P., Riedel, J., & Neuhaus, B. (2021). Ageing Effects in Mounting Media of Microscope Slide Samples from Natural History Collections: A Case Study with Canada Balsam and PermountTM. Polymers, 13(13), Article 13. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13132112
Edit, from my drafts: I forgot everything about this post when I made it. I've done the work I was preparing for when I wrote this! It was super cool, I'm really glad I got the opportunity.
Leon Pray's art and publications (now scanned and uploaded onto the Internet Archive for all to see!)
Original drawings
American Game Head Studies for the Taxidermist
Mammal Studies for the Taxidermist 2nd Edition
World Game Head Studies for the Taxidermist
Modern Taxidermist #165 4th Quarter 1964 Not published by Leon Pray, but it includes his art on the cover and throughout the magazine, as well as a story written by him towards the end.
Michigan Whitetails 1959 This one isn't connected with Leon Pray, but its an interesting booklet about deer and hunting that I think some people (including myself) would find interesting.
I remember hearing in a video years ago that the most popular ride to work at in Disney World was the Tower of Terror, because it was the only place you didn't have to pretend to be happy all the time - gloominess was part of your character.
I am SO pleased to see that the staff at the Edward Gorey museum have embraced this. I would gladly go back to a minimum wage front desk position if I got to tell guests "I suppose I must let you in. Feel free to wander the first floor. The director might come downstairs and give a talk. He might not. Life is full of disappointments." A++, only made better by the many children running around underfoot trying to find various murder weapons in the gashlycrumb tinies scavenger hunt
This is their contact page btw
Northern Flicker (red-shafted)
Colaptes auratus
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Nice pinning!

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Thesis writing begins today. Exciting!!! Also: aaaaaaa!!!