This document discusses the challenges of cataloguing reports from scientific expeditions, using the Challenger Reports as an example. It notes that there were 83 Challenger Reports published by 47 authors, held across 4 sites in 50 different sectional libraries, with 220 bib records created for this work. It also mentions the opportunity for the Natural History Museum to think about metadata across the entire museum collection as part of an effort to move specimens to a new location.

1. Ship[w]right[e]s?
The challenges of cataloguing reports from
scientific expeditions.
Ben Cornish, Natural History Museum
CILIP Metadata & Discovery Group Conference 2023
#CILIPMDG2023

2. © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
NHM Unlocked
1 The NHM Unlocked Programme will move 28
million specimens to Thames Valley Science Park
(TVSP) in partnership with the University of
Reading
2 Approx 10,000 lm of library material to prepare –
about 1,000 done so far
3 V.v.v.v.v. Approx 400,000 items to work though –
50,000 so far
4 Opportunity to think about metadata across the
museum.

3. Reports from scientific expeditions – Challenger
Reports
Ship[w]right[e]s? 3
• 83 Challenger Reports
published
• 32 bound volumes
• 47 contributing authors
• Multiple prepublications,
including during the voyages

4. Reports from scientific expeditions – Challenger
Reports
Ship[w]right[e]s? 4
• 220 bib records for this work
• Held at 4 sites
• In 50 different sectional
libraries

5. Ship[w]right[e]s? 5
Ship writes?

6. Ship[w]right[e]s?
Shipwrights?
6
RSS Discovery being build in Dundee
George Nares, captain of the Challenger
Expedition

7. Ship[w]right[e]s?
Ship rights?
7
The natural history knowledge
from
indigenous people from around
the world, captured
through colonial encounters,
needs to be more
widely acknowledged for their
impact on society,
with their narratives sitting
proudly alongside those
specimens and artefacts within
natural history
museums.
Das, S. and Lowe, M., 2018.
JoNSC 6, pp.4-14

8. References
• Ben Abrahamse (2021) Corporate Bodies: Access Points and Authority
Control, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 59:2-3, 242-259,
DOI:10.1080/01639374.2020.1854914
• Paromita Biswas (2022) Can CONSER Lead the Way? Considering Ethical
Implications for Corporate Bodies in Name Authority Records, Cataloging &
Classification Quarterly, 60:5, 387-399, DOI:
10.1080/01639374.2022.2086334
• Katherine M. Wisser (2011) Describing Entities and Identities: The
Development and Structure of Encoded Archival Context—Corporate
Bodies, Persons, and Families, Journal of Library Metadata, 11:3-4, 166-
175, DOI: 10.1080/19386389.2011.629960
• Qiang Jin (2003) Comparing and Evaluating Corporate Names in the
National Authority File (LC NAF) on OCLC and on the Web, Cataloging &
Classification Quarterly, 36:2, 21-30, DOI: 10.1300/J104v36n02_04
• Michelle Light (2008) Moving Beyond the Name: Defining Corporate Entities
to Support Provenance-Based Access, Journal of Archival Organization, 5:1-
2, 49-74, DOI: 10.1300/J201v05n01_04
• Lee Arnold & Thomas van der Walt (2019) Towards a Better Description of
Genre Archives: A Case Study of Travel Archives, Cataloging &
Classification Quarterly, 57:6,369-392, DOI:
10.1080/01639374.2019.1656693
• Michael Jones (2017) From personal to public: field books, museums, and
the opening of the archives, Archives and Records, 38:2, 212-227,
DOI:10.1080/23257962.2016.1269645
• Das, S. & Lowe, M. (2018). Nature Read in Black and White: decolonial
approaches to interpreting natural history collections. Journal of Natural
Science Collections, Volume 6, 4 ‐ 14.