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SCIENCES
Biology, Field Director – Marie-Christine Maurel
Systematics, Phylogenomics and Taxonomy
Subject Head – Philippe Grandcolas
Natural History Collections in the Science of the 21st Century
A Sustainable Resource for Open Science
Coordinated by
Roseli Pellens
First published 2021 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27-37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
© ISTE Ltd 2021
The rights of Roseli Pellens to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944047
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78945-049-1
ERC code:
SH5 Cultures and Cultural Production
SH5_7 Museums, exhibitions, conservation and restoration
Foreword
Bruno D AVID
Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France
The book you are holding in your hands offers an original and stimulating reflection on the role of natural history collections, their scientific interest, and their use in understanding the world we live in. On these themes, the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History), with its 68 million specimens and 2 million documents, archives and objects stored in its reserves and libraries, has had to make its voice heard through the contributions of many researchers from various academic backgrounds.
By shedding light on the different facets of the collections, from collection to conservation, Roseli Pellens, the coordinator of this ambitious editorial project, explores their close links with research, expertise and the dissemination of knowledge. These interfaces have been the Muséum’s raison d’être since its foundation and have contributed to its influence in France and abroad.
As Roseli Pellens rightly reminds us in Chapter 1, which is a general introduction, the collections do not speak for themselves; they are a medium that allows us to reconstitute the vast and complex puzzle of the history of life on Earth and open up broader avenues of reflection on the understanding of life from its most distant origins.
By underlining the essential link between collections and research, this book takes up a singular challenge: that of making the collections, witnesses of a long history, speak for themselves and of putting them at the center of the construction of a reliable and scientifically supported form of knowledge. But to fully understand the mysteries of this knowledge factory, a detour through the history of the Muséum’s collections is necessary.
When it was founded, the Jardin du Roi (the former name of the Jardin des Plantes) had an eponymous cabinet, built in 1633 on the site of its current central library. It housed the first curiosities that constituted the core of the Muséum’s collections: insects, plants, fossils, concretions and monster skeletons, as well as the beginnings of what was to become the first natural history library in France. This cabinet was the jewel of the institution, its standard, but also the foundation of its