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Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum
'Dry Store Room No. 1' is an intimate biography of the Natural History Museum, celebrating the eccentric personalities who have peopled it and capturing the wonders of scientific endeavour, academic rigour and imagination. 'This book is a kind of museum of the mind. It is my own collection, a personal archive, designed to explain what goes on behind the polished doors in the Natural History Museum. The lustre of a museum does not depend only on the artefacts or objects it contains -- the people who work out of sight are what keeps a museum alive!I want to bring those invisible people into the sunlight.' Behind the public facade of any great museum there lies a secret one of unseen galleries, locked doors, priceless specimens and hidden lives. Through the stories of the numerous eccentric individuals whose long careers have left their mark on the study of evolutionary science, Richard Fortey, former senior paleaontologist at London's Natural History Museum, celebrates the pioneering work of the Museum from its inception to the present day.He delves into the feuds, affairs, scandals and skulduggery that have punctuated its long history, and formed a backdrop to extraordinary scientific endeavour. He explores the staying power and adaptability of the Museum as it responds to changes wrought by advances in technology and molecular biology -- 'spare' bones from an extinct giant bird suddenly become cutting-edge science with the new knowledge that DNA can be extracted from them, and ancient fish are tested with the latest equipment that is able to measure rises in pollution. 'Dry Store Room No. 1' is a fascinating and affectionate account of a hidden world of untold treasures, where every fragment tells a story about time past, by a scientist who combines rigorous professional learning with a gift for prose that sparkles with wit and literary sensibility.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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2809 people want to read
About the author
Richard Fortey
31 books303 followersRichard Alan Fortey was a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews
May 21, 2015
This book is fabulous, and I tried to do it justice by researching and linking some pictures from the Natural History Museum. But I can't be bothered to fuss with GR's system and annotating my references.
Blog review with pictures: https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2015/...
Text review:
Fortey had me hooked with the idea of the behind-the-scenes maze at the British Museum. There’s something about that that appeals to me; not only knowing the stories, but the physicality of the space. In my first few years working at the hospital, I used to delight in knowing the back stairwells and unused corridors one could take to get from one decade of the building to another. How could a building like this not be filled with hidden mysteries?
Inside the Spirit Collection, Natural History Museum http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-o...
“Tucked away, mostly out of view, there is a warren of corridors, obsolete galleries, offices, libraries and above all, collections. This is the natural habitat of the curator.“
It is a historical tour of the museum, staff and taxonomy by a knowledgeable, urbane, humorous guide. Fortey was hired as a Junior Researcher (specializing in trilobites, as one does) in 1970 and has been there ever since–even past his retirement in 2006. He is clearly a wit, apparent most often in the early chapters. In one anecdote, he shares his reaction to timekeeping requirements:
“The diary was a hangover from the early days of the Museum, being a little book into which the employee was supposed to write his activities, morning and afternoon, and which was collected every month and signed off by the head of the department… I took to writing “study trilobites” on the first day of the month and ditto marks for the rest of it.”
I devoured the first part of this book. I meant to read just a chapter before bed, a way of lulling my brain into imaginative sleepiness without catching me up into murders and anti-heroes, but Fortey’s enthusiasm engaged me. He clearly loves taxonomy and biology, and has a deep respect for the research process. Although he is generally apolitical, he does occasionally allow himself commentary on problematic aspects of the history of museums, the history of science and politics influencing research. He shares minor scandals about researchers, stories of discoveries, and anecdotes about the space inside the museum. In many ways, much of it is about the history of science and of taxonomy as much as a museum.
“Science is often like this: an idea has been around for a while before new evidence suddenly pushes it forwards. And then researchers start to think: maybe this example is not so surprising after all.”
From the herb collection in the Botany Department http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curatio...
I confess, like a number of enthusiasts who’ve illegally sampled collections, I felt a little bit of atavistic greed when he talked about the Herbarium. I probably shouldn’t be allowed in there.
I stumbled at the section on bugs. I just could not read it before bed, no matter how engaging the story, particularly when he mentions their connection to forensics. Sill, I regained my footing as he continued with typical humor. The mineralogy section is perhaps the least engaging for both of us, though he does his best to liven it up with stories about gems and meteorites. There’s a nod to modern equipment and the machines in this section, which was the only place I skimmed–about 3 pages in total–because of the specificity and complexity of material. For the rest of it, Fortey deftly explains in a way that anyone can understand.
There’s something supremely eerie about the idea we can catalog life by reducing it to it’s essential, whether through description of DNA or through the “type” specimens, the first and ideal type of a thing described. I remember the first time I opened a drawer at my college’s biology department and saw specimen upon specimen of dead bird.
Diptera collection, from Natural History Museum http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curatio...
To be fair, I think Fortey understands life can’t be conceptualized down to its representation:
“Modern methods of characterizing species employ molecular sequencing to identify a characteristic part of the DNA… But this process leaves out everything else. Every species has its own tale, a story about how it earns its living , meets its mate or warns off its enemies: the interesting stuff. You don’t understand London just by reading the names in the telephone directory.”
The summary looks back at some of the influencers, for better or for worse, and includes a mention of significant female researchers while noting the sexism of the system. He finalizes with a bit of a lament about the requirements of funding and its effect on ‘pure’ research. However, there’s a note of hope–the very fact that so much information is available by way of the internet and through collaborations, we might once again see the rise of the amateur enthusiast contributing to the knowledge base. Overall, a fascinating and entertaining look through the corridors and boxes in one man’s memories in the British Natural History Museum, as well as the future of taxonomy.
“I could not suppress the thought that the storeroom was like the inside of my head, presenting a physical analogy for the jumbled lumber room of memory… This book opens a few cupboards, sifts through a few drawers. A life accumulates a collection: of people, work and perplexities. We are all our own curators.”
April 18, 2017
Dry Store Room No. 1 was a kind of miscellaneous repository, a place of institutional amnesia. It was rumoured that it was also the site of trysts, although love in the shadow of the sunfish must have been needy rather than romantic. Certainly, it was a place unlikely to be disturbed until it was dismantled. I could not suppress the thought that the store room was like the inside of my head, presenting a physical analogy for the jumbled lumber-room of memory. Not everything there was entirely respectable; but, even if tucked out of sight like suppressed memories, these collections could never be thrown away. This book opens a few cupboards, sifts through a few drawers. A life accumulates a collection: of people, work and perplexities. We are all our own curators.
Before you get any ideas, this book is not just about the one storeroom. And while the book is focused on London's Natural History Museum - its history, people, and exhibits - Dr. Fortey tells of much more than just the museum, he just happens to use the museum as an anchor for his discourse into the history (naturally!) of the world and the people and finds that have shaped our understanding of it.
And what an anchor it is! The Natural History Museum started out as a part of the British Museum (another favourite haunt of mine), but the collection of natural artefacts soon outgrew the capacity of the British Museum and efforts led by Richard Owen succeeded in the split of the collections and the establishment of the Natural History Museum as a separate enterprise and an important new centre of research - which it is to this day.
Dr. Fortey goes into a lot of detail about the history of the museum and its collections, and in turn this reveals a wider story of the development of the natural sciences in society.
Fortey's forte, however, is when he gets to speak about the different collections and the people who have shaped not only the departments of the museum but also the scientific research - from lichen, to minerals, to worms. I had no idea, I could be so interested in worms!
My first concrete interest in the NHM's collections was when I read about Mary Anning's groundbreaking finds of ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus specimen which are held by the NHM.
Anning's finds are, of course, some of the famous exhibits, along with the archaeopteryx, or the dodo skeleton. While Fortey mentions them, he also introduces the collections that are not on display and that are mostly of interest to the scientific community. He does it in a way, tho, that is strangely fascinating. And while not all parts of the book are equally interesting, and while Fortey's tangents sometimes strayed off into the finer points of plant classification, I loved his message, or rather messages, which drive home the importance of the Natural History Museum and the scientific research conducted there:
Science, treasure, rarity, beauty, scholarship: this hidden gallery made me understand again the heterogeneous attraction of Museum life. Nowhere else could a link with the Mughal emperors be relevant to what happens deep beneath the surface of the Earth; nowhere else would the fanatical collecting of a toffish Russell become a long-term resource for mineral genesis; nowhere else could rummaging in an attic reveal an archive of the Prince Regent. From the Russell Room I looked out on to the Victoria and Albert Museum across the other side of Exhibition Road. The prospect might suggest imperial nonsense and ‘pomp and circumstance’, a slightly ridiculous inheritance from the nineteenth century when the Sun never set on the British Empire. But South Kensington has become transformed by time and usage into something that is more than just the ‘BM’ and the ‘V& A’, a monument to a Britain that no longer exists. The collections are there to inform and inspire the whole world, and not just a small corner of it. I am not much of a post-colonialist, and I don’t necessarily admire the principles on which the collections were made. But I do understand the primacy of collections as a record of the world, both human and natural. There is more to collections than the golden rule about never throwing things away. There is inherent value in having people who ‘know their stuff’. The apparently esoteric can suddenly illuminate unsuspected areas of knowledge. Those who have devoted their lives to collections – obdurate people, odd people, admirable people – actually make a museum what it is and should be.
Before you get any ideas, this book is not just about the one storeroom. And while the book is focused on London's Natural History Museum - its history, people, and exhibits - Dr. Fortey tells of much more than just the museum, he just happens to use the museum as an anchor for his discourse into the history (naturally!) of the world and the people and finds that have shaped our understanding of it.
And what an anchor it is! The Natural History Museum started out as a part of the British Museum (another favourite haunt of mine), but the collection of natural artefacts soon outgrew the capacity of the British Museum and efforts led by Richard Owen succeeded in the split of the collections and the establishment of the Natural History Museum as a separate enterprise and an important new centre of research - which it is to this day.
Dr. Fortey goes into a lot of detail about the history of the museum and its collections, and in turn this reveals a wider story of the development of the natural sciences in society.
Fortey's forte, however, is when he gets to speak about the different collections and the people who have shaped not only the departments of the museum but also the scientific research - from lichen, to minerals, to worms. I had no idea, I could be so interested in worms!
My first concrete interest in the NHM's collections was when I read about Mary Anning's groundbreaking finds of ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus specimen which are held by the NHM.
Anning's finds are, of course, some of the famous exhibits, along with the archaeopteryx, or the dodo skeleton. While Fortey mentions them, he also introduces the collections that are not on display and that are mostly of interest to the scientific community. He does it in a way, tho, that is strangely fascinating. And while not all parts of the book are equally interesting, and while Fortey's tangents sometimes strayed off into the finer points of plant classification, I loved his message, or rather messages, which drive home the importance of the Natural History Museum and the scientific research conducted there:
Science, treasure, rarity, beauty, scholarship: this hidden gallery made me understand again the heterogeneous attraction of Museum life. Nowhere else could a link with the Mughal emperors be relevant to what happens deep beneath the surface of the Earth; nowhere else would the fanatical collecting of a toffish Russell become a long-term resource for mineral genesis; nowhere else could rummaging in an attic reveal an archive of the Prince Regent. From the Russell Room I looked out on to the Victoria and Albert Museum across the other side of Exhibition Road. The prospect might suggest imperial nonsense and ‘pomp and circumstance’, a slightly ridiculous inheritance from the nineteenth century when the Sun never set on the British Empire. But South Kensington has become transformed by time and usage into something that is more than just the ‘BM’ and the ‘V& A’, a monument to a Britain that no longer exists. The collections are there to inform and inspire the whole world, and not just a small corner of it. I am not much of a post-colonialist, and I don’t necessarily admire the principles on which the collections were made. But I do understand the primacy of collections as a record of the world, both human and natural. There is more to collections than the golden rule about never throwing things away. There is inherent value in having people who ‘know their stuff’. The apparently esoteric can suddenly illuminate unsuspected areas of knowledge. Those who have devoted their lives to collections – obdurate people, odd people, admirable people – actually make a museum what it is and should be.
Read
May 15, 2010This hilarious memoir makes the case that British eccentrics, particularly of the scientific variety, are an endangered species due to rapid habitat loss. The author spent his entire career as the "trilobite man" at the Natural History Museum in London -- in the Department of Palaeontology, reachable by a door hidden behind a skeleton of a giant sloth in the public gallery, of course -- and he is a gleeful guide to everything that will be lost in a world where research and particularly taxonomy are no longer considered sexy commodities.
Speaking of which, Fortey is surprisingly open about the love lives, mental disorders, and substance abuse problems of his colleagues -- the title refers to a noted trysting spot in the Museum -- and even seems rather disappointed by the notoriously clean-living minerologists. But in my opinion his best anecdotes are the ones directly related to research: how Linneaus's notebooks almost touched off a war, why mycologists tend to be watercolorists, numerous examples of scientists coming to resemble their objects of study (touchingly, the mollusc people work in a cozy "oyster bed" in the basement), stories of demi-official collecting expeditions like the one organized in the early 1970's by 4 young entomologists (who all looked like members of Fleetwood Mac) for £3,000.
Fortey employs a charmingly old-fashioned turn of phrase, sometimes to a baffling extent, as when he refers to fossil shells "shaped like the wafers that hold scoops of ice cream" (uh... you mean ice cream CONES??). I particularly love it when he busts out with some dotty aside like "It has been one of my life's unfulfilled ambitions to eat the giant mushroom Termitomyces that grows deep inside the termite mounds in Africa"; or "they glide over the forest floor feeding on decaying vegetation: a slime mould in this stage of its life is like a patch of living snot". Boundless affection for nature's works -- especially animals, slightly less for plants and a rather stiff relationship with rocks -- is exuded from every chapter.
Lest you get the impression that this memoir is merely an academic gossipfest, let me note how deeply the author understands and makes the case for scientific research and particularly the unending minutiae of taxonomy. Even those of us who read a lot of popular science books are probably incapable of explaining so clearly the actual processes by which species are collected, prepared, described, named, verified, accepted, stored, and sometimes reclassified. Still less could we describe the pros and cons of the major taxonomic methods in play today. Fortey can and does, grounding his anecdotes in the day-to-day work of the palaeontologist, zoologist, and botanist.
The scientific method is not a pretty thing practiced by angelic gentlemen in this author's view -- at one point he notes, "It might actually be the case that having an obstructive, disagreeable, temperamental, competitive or even downright anarchic group of people all scrapping and competing is the best way to push knowledge forwards." -- but his lively account gives you a sense of what the world will lose when market-driven, value-added, customer-focused museums entirely take over the natural homes of those few obsessives who can recognize thousands of midges, butterflies, fungi, or trilobites as easily as most people can recognize the faces on Facebook.
Speaking of which, Fortey is surprisingly open about the love lives, mental disorders, and substance abuse problems of his colleagues -- the title refers to a noted trysting spot in the Museum -- and even seems rather disappointed by the notoriously clean-living minerologists. But in my opinion his best anecdotes are the ones directly related to research: how Linneaus's notebooks almost touched off a war, why mycologists tend to be watercolorists, numerous examples of scientists coming to resemble their objects of study (touchingly, the mollusc people work in a cozy "oyster bed" in the basement), stories of demi-official collecting expeditions like the one organized in the early 1970's by 4 young entomologists (who all looked like members of Fleetwood Mac) for £3,000.
Fortey employs a charmingly old-fashioned turn of phrase, sometimes to a baffling extent, as when he refers to fossil shells "shaped like the wafers that hold scoops of ice cream" (uh... you mean ice cream CONES??). I particularly love it when he busts out with some dotty aside like "It has been one of my life's unfulfilled ambitions to eat the giant mushroom Termitomyces that grows deep inside the termite mounds in Africa"; or "they glide over the forest floor feeding on decaying vegetation: a slime mould in this stage of its life is like a patch of living snot". Boundless affection for nature's works -- especially animals, slightly less for plants and a rather stiff relationship with rocks -- is exuded from every chapter.
Lest you get the impression that this memoir is merely an academic gossipfest, let me note how deeply the author understands and makes the case for scientific research and particularly the unending minutiae of taxonomy. Even those of us who read a lot of popular science books are probably incapable of explaining so clearly the actual processes by which species are collected, prepared, described, named, verified, accepted, stored, and sometimes reclassified. Still less could we describe the pros and cons of the major taxonomic methods in play today. Fortey can and does, grounding his anecdotes in the day-to-day work of the palaeontologist, zoologist, and botanist.
The scientific method is not a pretty thing practiced by angelic gentlemen in this author's view -- at one point he notes, "It might actually be the case that having an obstructive, disagreeable, temperamental, competitive or even downright anarchic group of people all scrapping and competing is the best way to push knowledge forwards." -- but his lively account gives you a sense of what the world will lose when market-driven, value-added, customer-focused museums entirely take over the natural homes of those few obsessives who can recognize thousands of midges, butterflies, fungi, or trilobites as easily as most people can recognize the faces on Facebook.
December 2, 2008
Wildly discursive, endlessly fascinating look behind the scenes of the Natural History museum in London. Fortey is a scientist's scientist, a naturalist's naturalist- he's compelled to explain some mind-numbing minutia along the way to imparting interesting facts. Some of his pedantic asides made me laugh out loud because they were such textbook nerd moments. There's a lot of detail here, more even than I wanted, but the narrative is terribly interesting. If you like that sort of thing, and I do.
December 5, 2012
I adore Richard Fortey's writing. His sense of humour matches mine extremely well and I appreciate the literariness of his style. Having worked in libraries and, currently, at a museum, I know how much of the action takes place out of public view. Fortey lets us spy on the secret life of the museum and the museum curators. Its a fascinating world and highly entertaining.
An extremely good read.
An extremely good read.
March 25, 2014
A lot of reviews comment on how dry they found this book, but I rather enjoyed it. I like Richard Fortey's style of writing, despite his tendency to ramble and get distracted. It's more of a biography or history of the Natural History Museum than a chronicle of the science that goes on there, but there's some of that, too.
I liked the sense of exploring a wonderland -- Fortey plainly finds everything in the Natural History Museum a delight and a revelation, and I shared in that. He got in some apt comparisons, too, like comparing the museum's storage to Gormenghast.
I was vaguely aware of most of the broader details here about trends in collecting and displaying, but most of the details about the actual scientists and curators were completely new to me. This book has a distinctly gossip-like feeling, which I didn't mind at all.
I liked the sense of exploring a wonderland -- Fortey plainly finds everything in the Natural History Museum a delight and a revelation, and I shared in that. He got in some apt comparisons, too, like comparing the museum's storage to Gormenghast.
I was vaguely aware of most of the broader details here about trends in collecting and displaying, but most of the details about the actual scientists and curators were completely new to me. This book has a distinctly gossip-like feeling, which I didn't mind at all.
October 19, 2022
I am a museum enthusiast and have visited most of the Natural History museums in United States. One museum that is in the top of my "Want to visit" list is the Natural History Museum in South Kensington UK. The association of names like Charles Darwin and David Attenborough with this museum and the collection it has is enough to make it to the top of my list. But on the flip side, I am troubled by the fact that most of the collections here are gathered during British colonial times without the consent of the people of the land it belonged to. That is another tropic all together.
I was always intrigued and curious about the activities that went behind the closed doors of the museum areas where general public are not usually allowed. Got excited when I found this book and hoped it will let me peek into those off-limits area and it definitely did.
Book talks about the history of the conception of the museum, how specimens are collected and named and all the major areas of the exhibits like Paleo world fossils, Animalia, Plantae, Entomology, Minerology and Geology. It also talks about how specimens were preserved even in the time of war which was interesting.
Author lists quite a few names of pantheons in each one of the above-mentioned areas. At times it is too much. And, It is sad to see that even the Tabernacle of Science is not free from cheap scandals and politics.
Even though the author gives you lot of interesting scientific information, at times I felt that he has written this book only for British people. All his examples and analogies are very British and alien to me. To my frustration, the author jumps from one subject to the other in a non-coherent manner which was annoying.
Nevertheless, A must read for any Natural history museum enthusiasts.
I was always intrigued and curious about the activities that went behind the closed doors of the museum areas where general public are not usually allowed. Got excited when I found this book and hoped it will let me peek into those off-limits area and it definitely did.
Book talks about the history of the conception of the museum, how specimens are collected and named and all the major areas of the exhibits like Paleo world fossils, Animalia, Plantae, Entomology, Minerology and Geology. It also talks about how specimens were preserved even in the time of war which was interesting.
Author lists quite a few names of pantheons in each one of the above-mentioned areas. At times it is too much. And, It is sad to see that even the Tabernacle of Science is not free from cheap scandals and politics.
Even though the author gives you lot of interesting scientific information, at times I felt that he has written this book only for British people. All his examples and analogies are very British and alien to me. To my frustration, the author jumps from one subject to the other in a non-coherent manner which was annoying.
Nevertheless, A must read for any Natural history museum enthusiasts.
May 11, 2017
You know how sometimes you get stuck in a conversation with someone who tells you a story about people you don't know and don't care about in excruciating detail? And then just when you are thinking, OK, the next time he takes a breath I'm going to interject and say I have an appointment I really must leave for, pleasure chatting with you? And then right before he breathes, he says something utterly fascinating and you decide it's worth sticking around to hear the rest of that story? And then that little 5-minute tidbit passes and you've lost your chance for escape? This whole book was like that--20 minutes of 2-star alternating with 5 minutes of 5-star. Just when I thought, OK, I'm putting this down at the end of this chapter for sure, he'd reel me right back in.
March 16, 2012
Fortey is not only a reasonable writer in that he can tell a good story, he also has some important things to say gleaned from his whole career and the British Natural History Museum. He uses this book to say those things, but doesn't quite fall into the preachy area.
While Fortey's line of work is arthropod paleontology, he roams and roves through the Museum as a whole, including plants, minerals, and fungi. Much of the book is telling about his co-workers over the years, and he includes the great work they've done, some of the gaffes that have happened, and other various stories. Fortey just touches on the Museum's Directors taking the stance that the real important work is done by - amazing, this - the workers.
The ending quarter of the book, in some ways, is taken up with an interesting personal overview of how the British Museum has changed over his career. It has moved from the scientists being the most important elements to the marketers and PR people. It has moved from having people available to study their subjects in absolute depth - and he gives stories about the good that can happen for all of us when people are allowed to do that - to people being let go and not replaced because the bean counters don't see what they're doing as worth anything. Fortey stops short of really decrying this situation. I won't.
Through it all, one thing is clear: Fortey thought the world of the mission of the Museum and its scientific workers. He notes that many of the scientists still work at the Museum gratis after their official retirement because they love the work, and its not done yet.
Would that we all worked in such places and with such people.
While Fortey's line of work is arthropod paleontology, he roams and roves through the Museum as a whole, including plants, minerals, and fungi. Much of the book is telling about his co-workers over the years, and he includes the great work they've done, some of the gaffes that have happened, and other various stories. Fortey just touches on the Museum's Directors taking the stance that the real important work is done by - amazing, this - the workers.
The ending quarter of the book, in some ways, is taken up with an interesting personal overview of how the British Museum has changed over his career. It has moved from the scientists being the most important elements to the marketers and PR people. It has moved from having people available to study their subjects in absolute depth - and he gives stories about the good that can happen for all of us when people are allowed to do that - to people being let go and not replaced because the bean counters don't see what they're doing as worth anything. Fortey stops short of really decrying this situation. I won't.
Through it all, one thing is clear: Fortey thought the world of the mission of the Museum and its scientific workers. He notes that many of the scientists still work at the Museum gratis after their official retirement because they love the work, and its not done yet.
Would that we all worked in such places and with such people.
October 18, 2013
Lest you think a museum is a stuffy old building filled with the same antiquated exhibits, here's a book that provides an enlightening look behind the scenes at one of the biggest museums in England.
The amount of material stored in the Natural History Museum is staggering. Literally miles (not to mention kilometers) of all sorts of objects from creepy crawlies found only in a remote part of South America to minerals from right around the corner by comparison. I had no idea the museum employed such an array of specialists. For every family of bug there's a person who has made it their main field of study.
Among the employees are the eccentric old gents who thrive in this sort of environment. From the guy who kept and filed by length all the pieces of string ever sent to the museum as packaging to the bloke who tried on his bulky diving apparatus and then couldn't remove it so he walked out of the museum looking like as the author put it "an extra in a science fiction movie" there are certainly a varied assortment of people working out of the public view.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in science or those who enjoy a trip to a museum.
The amount of material stored in the Natural History Museum is staggering. Literally miles (not to mention kilometers) of all sorts of objects from creepy crawlies found only in a remote part of South America to minerals from right around the corner by comparison. I had no idea the museum employed such an array of specialists. For every family of bug there's a person who has made it their main field of study.
Among the employees are the eccentric old gents who thrive in this sort of environment. From the guy who kept and filed by length all the pieces of string ever sent to the museum as packaging to the bloke who tried on his bulky diving apparatus and then couldn't remove it so he walked out of the museum looking like as the author put it "an extra in a science fiction movie" there are certainly a varied assortment of people working out of the public view.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in science or those who enjoy a trip to a museum.
May 16, 2015
This is really quite a bit more interesting than the title might suggest! A few of the sections dragged ("Noah's Ark in Kensington" and "Behind the Galleries," particularly), but mostly Fortey's descriptions of plants, animals, and fossils, and of the men and women who study them, are pretty entertaining. He does tend to get a bit gossipy for me -- I might enjoy his science writing, Without the focus on the institutional politics, even more -- but that might just reflect my total ignorance about the scientists and politicians he is talking about. I now know a little more about trilobites, lichens, screw worms, corpse decay, etc. than I did previously, and Fortey managed to make all these things seem fun!
March 31, 2019
I had been meaning to read this one for a while, then stumbled upon it in the library. It's a quirky personal history of the Natural History Museum, written by one of its long-serving boffins. This particular boffin is into his trilobites, but he has an outgoing character and wide-ranging curiosity so he can talk competently about biology or geology or any other -ology. There's a lot of good science here, and I have new respect for those who devote their lives to a particular species in the belief that their painstaking efforts will be of use to future scientists. There's also a lot about how technology has changed the pursuit of knowledge in these many fields, which is also fascinating in its way. But it's the human stories that I will remember best. Such as the way so many of these scientists come to resemble their subjects, e.g. the 'bee man' of corpulent shape, striped sweater, humming his way down the steps to Cromwell Road. And there are many other lovely anecdotes, not least the fact that many romantic assignations between staff took place in that very 'Dry Store Room No. 1'. No wonder he hummed.
February 12, 2018
Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey is a real gem for all those who value the pursuit of science. Fortey, a natural scientist who worked for the Museum, shares his wisdom and experiences garnered through a long and successful career. His dry wit makes for an easy and enjoyable read, but the message of the need for continued support for the sciences is not lost on the reader. His writing is both poetic and a call to arms for the continued support for all scientific research, no matter how obscure, so that we don't lose pieces of our scientific history.
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September 23, 2023read 2/3s.. Dr. Fortey shares a fascinating peek into the vast corridors and backrooms of the British Natural History Museum where he spent most of his working life, opening up for the reader not just rich vistas of drawers upon drawers and jars upon formaldehyde jars of preserved animal and insect collections, but also impressing upon the reader the importance of this 'taxonomic joy'-- they are intrepid attempts to record biographies of unique creatures that have crossed the palimpsest of the geological record, an attempt to localize and know them for all time, an insuperable task. Most of the book dives into the histories of the grand men of British natural history who undertook great efforts to explore and collect specimens.
July 5, 2020
When I read the spine, I immediately knew that I needed to read it. Museums and secrets? All right, I am down with that. It was told from an evolutionary perspective and it was like having a conversation right there in the room. Coming from a creationist background, I thought this was interesting to read through. Fortey talked about scholars and scientists that contributed to the world of science and history and preserving the world's catalogue of life. Others would perhaps find this a bit dry. I didn't really agree with the closing quote but that is an opinion. I genuinely liked the book's style of writing even though I did not agree with it 100%.
June 28, 2021
Great behind the scenes about all the collections at the Natural History Museum. I did not finish as it’s quite a tome and much to take in. I’ll probably pick it up again during the winter months which is a great time to snuggle down with a book like this.
February 6, 2019
A highly entertaining read from an excellent and thoroughly readable science writer. Fortey provides a whistle-stop, yet unhurried tour of the magic that goes on behind-the-scenes at the Natural History Museum. Both the enigmatic charms of specimens soaked in alcohol brought back to the museum by illustrious figures such as Joseph Banks and Charles Darwin, and the incredible work done by the current crop of scientists at the museum who work tirelessly to ever expand the outer-field of human knowledge and wisdom are laid bare in an informative but highly descriptive and often intensely funny manner. Highly recommended for those with a particular interest in the Natural History Museum or simply those with a general interest in science and natural history.
October 6, 2011
This book is like Beauty and the Beast.
Let me explain.
Beauty and the Beast is my very favorite fairy tale. I will read adaptations of that story all day long, and well into the night. My favorite part of any version is when Beauty explores the castle. She's alone, and it's quiet, and she's wandering through room upon room of wonders and marvels. Beauty's sense of of awe, discovery, and curiosity perfectly mirrors Fortey's experience wandering through the hallways, storerooms, basements, and attic of London's Natural History Museum. It's as if Beauty gave up on that whole fall-in-love-and-find-a-prince scenario and took up curatorial and archival duties in the castle. It is wonderful.
Fortey spent years as a trilobite curator at the museum, so he is in prime position to recount the wonders housed there, the politics of the museum, and the changing trends of the establishment. He discusses how new technology, including genetic sequencing and tagging, have changed the way museum scientists do science. He talks about how changing funding structures pushed museums from being strictly research institutions to being centers of public learning. At times, he comes across as a bit of a curmudgeon, tut-tutting at those kids in the white coats with their gene sequencers, but in the end he recognizes their importance, though does stress the often-forgotten value in a specialist in one taxon or another. He does go on to explore the burgeoning role of the citizen scientist, but this is all information that will be familiar with anyone up on these branches of biology. He has some good things to say about the evolving roles of museum and science, but nothing earthshaking or very novel.
The wonderful value in this book, and what makes it such a treasure, are the treasures of the museum themselves. The twisting, hidden architecture of the museum, and the surprises it contains. These gems, set off by Fortey's engaging, amusing, and personable narration, make this an extremely pleasurable book.
Let me explain.
Beauty and the Beast is my very favorite fairy tale. I will read adaptations of that story all day long, and well into the night. My favorite part of any version is when Beauty explores the castle. She's alone, and it's quiet, and she's wandering through room upon room of wonders and marvels. Beauty's sense of of awe, discovery, and curiosity perfectly mirrors Fortey's experience wandering through the hallways, storerooms, basements, and attic of London's Natural History Museum. It's as if Beauty gave up on that whole fall-in-love-and-find-a-prince scenario and took up curatorial and archival duties in the castle. It is wonderful.
Fortey spent years as a trilobite curator at the museum, so he is in prime position to recount the wonders housed there, the politics of the museum, and the changing trends of the establishment. He discusses how new technology, including genetic sequencing and tagging, have changed the way museum scientists do science. He talks about how changing funding structures pushed museums from being strictly research institutions to being centers of public learning. At times, he comes across as a bit of a curmudgeon, tut-tutting at those kids in the white coats with their gene sequencers, but in the end he recognizes their importance, though does stress the often-forgotten value in a specialist in one taxon or another. He does go on to explore the burgeoning role of the citizen scientist, but this is all information that will be familiar with anyone up on these branches of biology. He has some good things to say about the evolving roles of museum and science, but nothing earthshaking or very novel.
The wonderful value in this book, and what makes it such a treasure, are the treasures of the museum themselves. The twisting, hidden architecture of the museum, and the surprises it contains. These gems, set off by Fortey's engaging, amusing, and personable narration, make this an extremely pleasurable book.
January 16, 2018
Quite a marathon of a read. It’s very thorough, detailed and meticulous in telling the story of the Natural History Museum, and there were some great anecdotes about all sorts of people and happenings.
December 29, 2015
A charming, rambling fusion of memoir/anecdote and scientific explanation. You get the feeling of working in the Natural History Museum, with all its own idiosyncrasy and history, but you also get a tour of the taxonomic work being done there. I'm not much for natural history museums, all those dead things freak me out, and so I wasn't aware how scientific it is in the background. The miles and miles of specimens used to delineate species and study biological or geological history. It's really fascinating and valuable, which is perhaps Fortey's main thesis.
I must say I also appreciate his view on progress -- a certain nostalgia, but also an appreciation of faster, more-accurate, newer techniques. There's some regret for the fall of the experts who could get away with anything because they knew everything, and I share the nostalgia... But he also appreciates that we're entering a new age of the amateur, and that's not a bad thing. In the past, it was upper-class amateurs who did scientific work. Now it will be a vast host of amateurs from all classes and all around the world, because the internet makes that possible. There's a hint of the old world here, but Fortey is aware of yesteryear's social problems, including imperialism and sexism. His asides on the great female taxonomists, often mistreated by their peers, were some of my favorite parts. Those, and the occasional discussions of how all the back-room science translates into the public exhibits.
I must say I also appreciate his view on progress -- a certain nostalgia, but also an appreciation of faster, more-accurate, newer techniques. There's some regret for the fall of the experts who could get away with anything because they knew everything, and I share the nostalgia... But he also appreciates that we're entering a new age of the amateur, and that's not a bad thing. In the past, it was upper-class amateurs who did scientific work. Now it will be a vast host of amateurs from all classes and all around the world, because the internet makes that possible. There's a hint of the old world here, but Fortey is aware of yesteryear's social problems, including imperialism and sexism. His asides on the great female taxonomists, often mistreated by their peers, were some of my favorite parts. Those, and the occasional discussions of how all the back-room science translates into the public exhibits.
May 22, 2010
I really enjoyed this book, the balance of information and humour was perfect in keeping my full attention; with other non-fiction books they can become a chore to get through at times but Fortey's humour pushed it along nicely and I am definitely a fan of the way he writes. Once picked up it was hard to put down but also very easy to get back into when picked up again after a break.
Fortey takes us into the secretive world of the museum, to get to know the cogs of the machine, without which the museum would not exist. I loved reading about the eccentric, passionate researchers, their area of research and other interests and at times their scandalous lives inside and outside of the museum as well as the changes within the museum over the years. The layout of the book is great meaning if you have a particular interest you could open the book at that chapter or return to at a later date, I know I will be, It covered things I already know and things I did not and now would like to look into further.
Also Fortey's constant comparisons of the museum building in South Kensington to the castle from Mervyn Peake's books of Gormanghast makes me want to read those soon.
A very enjoyable read, informative, amusing and inspiring.
Fortey takes us into the secretive world of the museum, to get to know the cogs of the machine, without which the museum would not exist. I loved reading about the eccentric, passionate researchers, their area of research and other interests and at times their scandalous lives inside and outside of the museum as well as the changes within the museum over the years. The layout of the book is great meaning if you have a particular interest you could open the book at that chapter or return to at a later date, I know I will be, It covered things I already know and things I did not and now would like to look into further.
Also Fortey's constant comparisons of the museum building in South Kensington to the castle from Mervyn Peake's books of Gormanghast makes me want to read those soon.
A very enjoyable read, informative, amusing and inspiring.
July 31, 2009
It took me many months to read this book which might make it seem that I didn't enjoy it. However, that's not the case. I especially loved the early chapters in this book which give you a walk through, behind-the-scenes look at London's Natural History Museum. It took me so long to finish it because I lack the discipline to push through non-fiction. Stories propel me forward and compel me to keep reading...even good non-fiction just doesn't do that for me.
This book includes scientific information about the collection, categorizing, and obsessing over animals, rocks, shells, insects, etc as well as often very funny stories about the scientists who study them.
I love museums, particularly Natural History museums and so I enjoyed this book very much. I did disagree with the author's assumption of evolution as THE ONLY WAY and (as a friend who read this stated) his inability to distinguish between evolution within a species as opposed to evolution from one species to another. I still don't buy that I evolved from a fish.
This book includes scientific information about the collection, categorizing, and obsessing over animals, rocks, shells, insects, etc as well as often very funny stories about the scientists who study them.
I love museums, particularly Natural History museums and so I enjoyed this book very much. I did disagree with the author's assumption of evolution as THE ONLY WAY and (as a friend who read this stated) his inability to distinguish between evolution within a species as opposed to evolution from one species to another. I still don't buy that I evolved from a fish.
July 21, 2013
This book is heavy on Taxonomy and how the museum preserves and stores specimens. It is interesting because there are so many different branches of study in natural science. The men and women who do it are true scientist and academics as well as historians. They study and preserve plant and animal species that may become extinct due to man's bad habits. Also, the study of various organisms that the museum researches may one day relieve some of the maladies of underdeveloped nations and those who live in extreme poverty and malnourishment.
This book also had a great history of the museum and its leaders. Interesting hierarchy and culture to work in.
This book also had a great history of the museum and its leaders. Interesting hierarchy and culture to work in.
January 25, 2009
This is a delightfully enthusiastic book, most interesting for anyone who has ever visited the museum in question (and anyone who hasn't). It includes some fascinating pictures. And the design of the book is pleasing. The author has a wonderfully intimate manner, and paints almost Dickensian-ly vivid pictures of his colleagues, past and present. Consequently, the book has a convivial, chatty feel. Delightful.
June 7, 2010
I bought this book, excited by the idea of a 'behind-the-scenes' look at the Natural History Museum(s). Instead, I stopped reading halfway through, as this was only a behind-the-scenes account in that it was entirely made up of anecdotes by Fortey about his time at the museum. No real science. No real info. This book should be classed as a biography or memoir.
December 19, 2015
If you love museums, if you love natural history, if you've ever thought the idea of getting lost in the back rooms of a museum sounded like something you'd put on your bucket list, I think you'll enjoy this book. I loved it - 4.5 stars worth.
More wordey review: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/118847...
More wordey review: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/118847...
August 26, 2009
This book could be so interesting, but it's just so dry. I read almost 100 pages and still couldn't get into it, so I gave up.
April 5, 2010
Great fun to read of the dedicated (and weird) people who keep science running and our great museums functioning.
September 8, 2012
It turns out that working at a museum is just as boring as I imagined
January 11, 2016
I love museums. When I went to Europe after I graduated university, one of the top three things I was looking forward to was getting to visit some of the most famous museums in the world. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as well as I hoped they would. Sometimes a museum would be closed on the day I wanted to visit; sometimes schedules for other activities would clash with my own plans and I would have to give way; and on other times I was simply too tired (or sick) to be able to enjoy the visit. In the end, I didn’t get to visit all the museums I wanted to go to, and I still feel a minor pang of regret over that.
One of the museums I had really wanted to go to was the Natural History Museum in London. When the trip was still in its planning stages, I’d allotted one day for the British Museum and the Natural History Museum - sensible, in my opinion, because they were so large. Sadly I didn’t get to visit either, because by that point in the trip I was just too tired to really enjoy the idea of exploring either museum.
It’s because of this lost opportunity that I decided to pick up Richard Fortey’s Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum. I might not have gotten the chance to see the Museum myself, but here was a book that would tell me all about it; even better, it would tell me about what went on behind the scenes, in the places where visitors are not allowed to go.
Dry Store Room No. 1 is in many ways what it says on the tin: a behind-the-scenes tour of the Natural History Museum, in the company of Richard Fortey, who worked there as the resident “trilobite man”. He describes the Museum (both literally and figuratively) thusly:
It was a place like Mervyn Peake’s rambling palace of Gormenghast, labyrinthine and almost endless, where some forgotten specialist might be secreted in a room so hard to find that his very existence might be called into question. I felt that somebody might go quietly mad in a distant compartment and never be called to account. I was to discover that this was no less than the truth.
Fortunately, the reader need not navigate the labyrinth on their own. Through the course of nine chapters, Fortey shows the reader around through the many hallways, rooms, cubbyholes, and unexpected hidden spaces that are not open to the visiting public, telling stories along the way. Many of those stories are, in fact, institutional history: part of the Museum’s own story through time. However, there are also plenty of stories that might be too scurrilous to count as part of something as venerable as “institutional history”: the rumours, the gossip, the “juicy bits” that so often get tastefully elided from more official accounts - or, if included, are told in a very dry, unentertaining manner. Take, for example, the tale he tells about Carl Linnaeus’ herbarium sheets, and why they are in England, and not in Linnaeus’ native Sweden:
The collection fetched up in London because Sir James Edward Smith bought it from Linnaeus widow for the sum of £1,050 in 1783. He certainly got a bargain, regardless of those tedious calculations that tell you much that money would be worth today; for he had purchased something timeless. Because of inefficiency or indecision the Swedish government did not make up its mind quickly enough to purchase the collection of its most famous scientific son and Smith stepped in. The Swedes realised their mistake and dispatched a man ‘o war to try and overtake the collection as it sailed on its way to England. Fortunately for the Linnean Society, the collection got away. I doubt whether an herbarium has ever before or since been the object of a diplomatic incident.
Fortey’s stories also include tales of the kind of humour that might not be obvious to laypeople, but which are regularly played within the scientific community - particularly in taxonomy:
Humour is a delicate matter in nomenclature. The clam genus Abra is crying out to be married with the species name cadabra; and so it was in a species named by Eames and Wilkins in 1957; Abra cadabra, a very satisfactory touch of humour. However, a subsequent authority decided that the species cadabra did not, after all, belong in Abra - so it was moved to another genus, Theora, and there is nothing very entertaining about Theora cadabra. …
Almost as good a pun as the Abra example is one of the numerous carabid beetles…Agra phobia. But my favourite remains the plant bugs described by one G. W. Kirkaldy in 1994. These genera all had the Greek suffix -chisme, pronounced ‘kiss me’. Kirkaldy managed to celebrate all the female objects of his affection by adding the appropriate prefix: Polychisme, Marichisme, Dollichisme and so on (there were rather a lot of them, apparently).
And then there are the people. Some of the stories Fortey tells are of people whom he knew or knows personally, while others were passed on to him by his own colleagues and friends. A few are practically “urban legends”: stories that are not entirely verifiable but are passed around anyway, like tales around a campfire (stories of sexual peccadilloes, in particular).
Throughout all of this, whatever sort of story he is telling, Fortey does so in a light, entertaining manner, his tone rather reminiscent of a grandfather telling stories to his favourite grandchildren. Even his humour is gentle, though there is no way one can miss the dry undertone underlying it, particularly when he thinks the subject matter deserves the sarcasm:
I understand that there is now a Creation Museum in Kentucky. Its own creators doubtless regard it as a ‘balance’ to all those pesky 'evolutionary’ museums. It is interesting that the embodiment of respectability for an idea is still a museum, as if a Museum of Falsehoods were a theoretical impossibility. I look forward to a Museum of the Flat Earth, as a counterbalance to all those oblate spheroid enthusiasts.
But Fortey’s goal is not simply to share the history and workaday gossip of the Museum. Threaded throughout the entire book is Fortey’s defence of the natural history museum - note the small caps, for he is not simply talking about his own Museum, but of all natural history museums and other similar institutions all around the world. He establishes this in the first chapter, with this excerpt:
The Natural History Museum is, first and foremost, a celebration of what time has done to life. If the world is to remain in ecological balance, there is a pressing need to know about all the organisms that collaborate to spin the web of life. The planet’s very survival might depend upon such knowledge.
Though he has used the capitalised “Natural History Museum” in his statement to refer to his own institution, he makes clear throughout the rest of the book that the same statement applies to all natural history museums anywhere in the world, big or small, venerably old or brand-spanking new. All natural history museums are, in one way or another, participants in the great work of biological systematics: basically, identifying and naming all species on Earth, and then sorting them out into their proper place in the great Tree of Life (which, incidentally, is also the name of the online project with the same goal). The importance of this cannot be underestimated, especially where it relates to conservation. Fortey explains why in the following excerpt:
Every species on Earth has a biography and each one is fascinating in its own way. There may be biologies in the deep sea about which we know nothing. Some of them may be useful to mankind in medicine, or in dealing with extreme conditions as we begin to stretch our metaphorical legs to climb to the stars. Who knows? If we allow species to disappear before they have a chance to tell us about themselves it will be a tragedy to add to the many that our species has already inflicted on the world.
But for all that he extols the virtues of the natural history museum, Fortey does express worry about how things are being run. He is, he admits, a member of the old guard, and remembers a time when it was possible to be an eccentric and still generate notable work. This is not a privilege available to younger scientists, as he decries (in his own, gentle way) the “publish or perish” climate so prevalent in research:
Nowadays, it is publish or perish, Nature red in tooth and claw, unnatural selection–and, to the winner, the spoils. The description of a scientist, no matter how brilliant, as a ‘non-producer’ is a very effective way of blocking his or her promotion. The result is that too many papers are published and many scientists are so busy keeping ahead of their rivals that they don’t even have time to read what other workers write.
He also worries elsewhere in the book that the pressure to make money - a result of businesspeople running museums, not scientists - is limiting the kind of research that can be done in. If a project does not show potential for a profit margin within two or three years, then it will not likely receive funding. Fortey opines that, while not all projects can show profitability immediately (or even at all), research must still be done: on one hand, it is impossible to predict the value of any piece of research until something comes up in the near or far future to prove it so; on the other hand, with human-driven climate change altering ecosystems all around the world, all scientists are under immense time pressure to understand the world as it is now, before it is irrevocably changed. If these scientists are unable to do their research because of short-term financial concerns, Fortey fears that some important aspect about the world will go unrecognised, with unknown repercussions in the future.
Still, not all things about the future are negative. He is particularly positive about the Internet as a tool for sharing knowledge amongst not just scientists, but amongst laypeople as well:
[The internet] takes the scientist out of his turreted redoubt in one of the remote corners of Gormenghast and places him or her at the disposal all interested parties around the world. It passes on expertise acquired through hours of burrowing through obscure tomes so that anyone can use it. This is a kind of democracy of learning, a generous gift from the cognoscenti to those who wish to learn.
The above excerpt might read as slightly condescending, particularly in the last part, but there is truth to what Fortey says about the Internet closing the gap between professional and amateur scientists, and between them and the average person on the street, whose interest in science may be only marginal, but which must be nurtured if humanity is to keep on moving forward towards a better future.
Overall, Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum is sure to charm any fan of the Natural History Museum in London, or of natural history museums anywhere in the world, or even of museums in general, but Fortey does more than just let the reader into the backstage world of his workplace. He also tackles the value of a natural history museum, its place in the greater pursuit of truth through science, and its importance not just for preserving the past, but for learning about what lies ahead in the future. With climate change an ever more pressing concern, the work done in natural history museums all around the world is even more important - and this book shows just how important that work is, even if it does not always seem obvious at first.
One of the museums I had really wanted to go to was the Natural History Museum in London. When the trip was still in its planning stages, I’d allotted one day for the British Museum and the Natural History Museum - sensible, in my opinion, because they were so large. Sadly I didn’t get to visit either, because by that point in the trip I was just too tired to really enjoy the idea of exploring either museum.
It’s because of this lost opportunity that I decided to pick up Richard Fortey’s Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum. I might not have gotten the chance to see the Museum myself, but here was a book that would tell me all about it; even better, it would tell me about what went on behind the scenes, in the places where visitors are not allowed to go.
Dry Store Room No. 1 is in many ways what it says on the tin: a behind-the-scenes tour of the Natural History Museum, in the company of Richard Fortey, who worked there as the resident “trilobite man”. He describes the Museum (both literally and figuratively) thusly:
It was a place like Mervyn Peake’s rambling palace of Gormenghast, labyrinthine and almost endless, where some forgotten specialist might be secreted in a room so hard to find that his very existence might be called into question. I felt that somebody might go quietly mad in a distant compartment and never be called to account. I was to discover that this was no less than the truth.
Fortunately, the reader need not navigate the labyrinth on their own. Through the course of nine chapters, Fortey shows the reader around through the many hallways, rooms, cubbyholes, and unexpected hidden spaces that are not open to the visiting public, telling stories along the way. Many of those stories are, in fact, institutional history: part of the Museum’s own story through time. However, there are also plenty of stories that might be too scurrilous to count as part of something as venerable as “institutional history”: the rumours, the gossip, the “juicy bits” that so often get tastefully elided from more official accounts - or, if included, are told in a very dry, unentertaining manner. Take, for example, the tale he tells about Carl Linnaeus’ herbarium sheets, and why they are in England, and not in Linnaeus’ native Sweden:
The collection fetched up in London because Sir James Edward Smith bought it from Linnaeus widow for the sum of £1,050 in 1783. He certainly got a bargain, regardless of those tedious calculations that tell you much that money would be worth today; for he had purchased something timeless. Because of inefficiency or indecision the Swedish government did not make up its mind quickly enough to purchase the collection of its most famous scientific son and Smith stepped in. The Swedes realised their mistake and dispatched a man ‘o war to try and overtake the collection as it sailed on its way to England. Fortunately for the Linnean Society, the collection got away. I doubt whether an herbarium has ever before or since been the object of a diplomatic incident.
Fortey’s stories also include tales of the kind of humour that might not be obvious to laypeople, but which are regularly played within the scientific community - particularly in taxonomy:
Humour is a delicate matter in nomenclature. The clam genus Abra is crying out to be married with the species name cadabra; and so it was in a species named by Eames and Wilkins in 1957; Abra cadabra, a very satisfactory touch of humour. However, a subsequent authority decided that the species cadabra did not, after all, belong in Abra - so it was moved to another genus, Theora, and there is nothing very entertaining about Theora cadabra. …
Almost as good a pun as the Abra example is one of the numerous carabid beetles…Agra phobia. But my favourite remains the plant bugs described by one G. W. Kirkaldy in 1994. These genera all had the Greek suffix -chisme, pronounced ‘kiss me’. Kirkaldy managed to celebrate all the female objects of his affection by adding the appropriate prefix: Polychisme, Marichisme, Dollichisme and so on (there were rather a lot of them, apparently).
And then there are the people. Some of the stories Fortey tells are of people whom he knew or knows personally, while others were passed on to him by his own colleagues and friends. A few are practically “urban legends”: stories that are not entirely verifiable but are passed around anyway, like tales around a campfire (stories of sexual peccadilloes, in particular).
Throughout all of this, whatever sort of story he is telling, Fortey does so in a light, entertaining manner, his tone rather reminiscent of a grandfather telling stories to his favourite grandchildren. Even his humour is gentle, though there is no way one can miss the dry undertone underlying it, particularly when he thinks the subject matter deserves the sarcasm:
I understand that there is now a Creation Museum in Kentucky. Its own creators doubtless regard it as a ‘balance’ to all those pesky 'evolutionary’ museums. It is interesting that the embodiment of respectability for an idea is still a museum, as if a Museum of Falsehoods were a theoretical impossibility. I look forward to a Museum of the Flat Earth, as a counterbalance to all those oblate spheroid enthusiasts.
But Fortey’s goal is not simply to share the history and workaday gossip of the Museum. Threaded throughout the entire book is Fortey’s defence of the natural history museum - note the small caps, for he is not simply talking about his own Museum, but of all natural history museums and other similar institutions all around the world. He establishes this in the first chapter, with this excerpt:
The Natural History Museum is, first and foremost, a celebration of what time has done to life. If the world is to remain in ecological balance, there is a pressing need to know about all the organisms that collaborate to spin the web of life. The planet’s very survival might depend upon such knowledge.
Though he has used the capitalised “Natural History Museum” in his statement to refer to his own institution, he makes clear throughout the rest of the book that the same statement applies to all natural history museums anywhere in the world, big or small, venerably old or brand-spanking new. All natural history museums are, in one way or another, participants in the great work of biological systematics: basically, identifying and naming all species on Earth, and then sorting them out into their proper place in the great Tree of Life (which, incidentally, is also the name of the online project with the same goal). The importance of this cannot be underestimated, especially where it relates to conservation. Fortey explains why in the following excerpt:
Every species on Earth has a biography and each one is fascinating in its own way. There may be biologies in the deep sea about which we know nothing. Some of them may be useful to mankind in medicine, or in dealing with extreme conditions as we begin to stretch our metaphorical legs to climb to the stars. Who knows? If we allow species to disappear before they have a chance to tell us about themselves it will be a tragedy to add to the many that our species has already inflicted on the world.
But for all that he extols the virtues of the natural history museum, Fortey does express worry about how things are being run. He is, he admits, a member of the old guard, and remembers a time when it was possible to be an eccentric and still generate notable work. This is not a privilege available to younger scientists, as he decries (in his own, gentle way) the “publish or perish” climate so prevalent in research:
Nowadays, it is publish or perish, Nature red in tooth and claw, unnatural selection–and, to the winner, the spoils. The description of a scientist, no matter how brilliant, as a ‘non-producer’ is a very effective way of blocking his or her promotion. The result is that too many papers are published and many scientists are so busy keeping ahead of their rivals that they don’t even have time to read what other workers write.
He also worries elsewhere in the book that the pressure to make money - a result of businesspeople running museums, not scientists - is limiting the kind of research that can be done in. If a project does not show potential for a profit margin within two or three years, then it will not likely receive funding. Fortey opines that, while not all projects can show profitability immediately (or even at all), research must still be done: on one hand, it is impossible to predict the value of any piece of research until something comes up in the near or far future to prove it so; on the other hand, with human-driven climate change altering ecosystems all around the world, all scientists are under immense time pressure to understand the world as it is now, before it is irrevocably changed. If these scientists are unable to do their research because of short-term financial concerns, Fortey fears that some important aspect about the world will go unrecognised, with unknown repercussions in the future.
Still, not all things about the future are negative. He is particularly positive about the Internet as a tool for sharing knowledge amongst not just scientists, but amongst laypeople as well:
[The internet] takes the scientist out of his turreted redoubt in one of the remote corners of Gormenghast and places him or her at the disposal all interested parties around the world. It passes on expertise acquired through hours of burrowing through obscure tomes so that anyone can use it. This is a kind of democracy of learning, a generous gift from the cognoscenti to those who wish to learn.
The above excerpt might read as slightly condescending, particularly in the last part, but there is truth to what Fortey says about the Internet closing the gap between professional and amateur scientists, and between them and the average person on the street, whose interest in science may be only marginal, but which must be nurtured if humanity is to keep on moving forward towards a better future.
Overall, Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum is sure to charm any fan of the Natural History Museum in London, or of natural history museums anywhere in the world, or even of museums in general, but Fortey does more than just let the reader into the backstage world of his workplace. He also tackles the value of a natural history museum, its place in the greater pursuit of truth through science, and its importance not just for preserving the past, but for learning about what lies ahead in the future. With climate change an ever more pressing concern, the work done in natural history museums all around the world is even more important - and this book shows just how important that work is, even if it does not always seem obvious at first.
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