Museum opens 'Nature's Library'

08 May 2013

Manchester Museum’s new gallery is a ‘library’ of the natural world – boasting four million preserved specimens instead of books. So who better to open it than presenter of the popular TV series ‘Wonders of Life’, our own Professor Brian Cox?

In a speech that included a Q&A session with over 800 guests, he talked about the importance of large systematic collections and the vital role of University museums.

The new gallery ‘Nature’s Library’ capitalises on the Gothic Revival architecture to create a dramatic setting within which to explore the displays.

 It explores the diversity of the natural world and how it’s represented at the Museum, including stuffed mammals, extinct birds, butterflies and beetles, corals, sponges, plants, meteorites, volcanic lavas and fossils. Some exhibits explore how the collection relates to teaching and research in the University.

It helps people to study parts of the world they perhaps can’t visit and also explores some of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ work of the Museum and why it’s important that museums continue to collect things.

The gallery has been funded by the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, John Spedan Lewis Foundation, the Pilgrim Trust and the John Paul Getty Charitable Trust .

The development, led by Curator of Earth Sciences David Gelsthorpe and Head of Collections and Curator of Zoology Henry McGhie, is the latest in a series at the Museum.