MUCH WORK DONE AT MUSEUM

Southland Times, Issue 23827, 26 May 1939, Page 5

MUCH WORK DONE AT MUSEUM

ACTIVITIES REVIEWED BY DIRECTOR CAMPAIGN FOR FUNDS FOR NEW BUILDING The appointment of the director of the Southland Museum (Mr J. H. Sorensen) as organizer of the Museum Board’s campaign for funds for the new museum was discussed at a meeting of the board in the council chambers yesterday morning. .The matter will be decided finally at a meetingoi the board to be held shortly. lhe Mayor (Mr J. R. Hanan) was chairman. Mr Sorensen outlined a plan lor the campaign. , A review of the activities or the museum was read by Mr Sorensen. “Registration work was begun some months back when the registers came to hand,” said Mr Sorensen, and to date several hundred pieces have been entered. Very little was done in former years in the way of registration, or, it entered, then very scanty detail was written. It is largely because of this fact that the museum is so little known in other centres, and that we occupy such a backward place among i( Ney Zealand museums today,” he said. This will be partly overcome when complete registration is completed, but it will occupy many months of tedious work and every article, whether displayed or stored, must be entered. Complementary to the work of registration was the naming of all specimens, birds, animals and remains, moa bones, geological specimens, and so on. Practically the whole of the collection had to be renamed to bring it up to date. Practically the whole of the stored collections have been fumigated, only two small collections remaining to be done at the store room, continued Mr Sorensen. Before the displayed _ birds and animals are placed 'on view in the new museum, they too must be treated and it will be found that many of them are worthless and will have, to be discarded. It would be most unfortunate should the museum lose its huias, stitch birds, or red kaka, he said. “The aim in display,” said the director, “must be to make the subject treated educational, scientifically correct and attractive and at the same time avoid heavy expense. I have mentioned before the possibility of conducting an art class of selected persons on either a Saturday afternoon or morning, in the construction of accessory material, model building, small habitat groups, and so on, but this must wait until the new building is constructed when it can well be gone on with. The museum would supply the materials and all completed work would be used in the displays.” The museum displayed very little geological material, he said, and there was' a wide' field open in this direction. In the new museum it is hoped to display reconstructed scenes of the province as it was thousands of years ago, the commercial usages of rocksj limestones, and so on, displays of various fossils and other phases of geological science.