Hi! I'm 83, in Los Angeles and unlikely to visit in the future - BUT my age 12 grandson need to know that terrific things happen everywhere in the world!! Thanks so much!

Anton Angelo As do I. So well done.

Mel, study get that degree and you could be working in there. Most archivist and curatrix are female, which is a bonus.

Lechiffresix six Do you work in a museum? What is your degree? 'o' and is an archivist a branch of conservation??

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word back to 1495, before Afrikaans had been invented, and derives it from the Latin "camelopardus" and Greek "Kamelopardalis." Pliny the Elder says Caesar had a camelopardus brought to the circus in Rome.

Transporting live giraffes from Africa to Britain was not easy, and the first success was in 1827 (one year before the establishment of London Zoo, but centuries after the royal family started keeping exotic animals, which were often given them as presents), when a female was given to King George IV. She only survived in Windsor Great Park for a couple of years, but she did get her portrait painted: www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/404394/the-nubian-giraffe

Very cute and very sweet! Who authored that work of art, of you don’t mind my asking?.. Please, confirm!

I mean, that the portrait was painted… not that the creatures perished…

The painting was by this guy: www.jacques-laurent-agasse.org/

I disagree. The point of museums at that time was to show people the wonders of the natural world. Paintings and stuff already existed. Ill admit its sad to kill an animal just to put it on display. But that is a modern consequence. At the time this was the best way. And alot of these those old museum samples have alot of relevance even today. The way we documented these animals, sometime with reckless abandon, Is kind of what we are preserving now. Human Nature. My favorite museum exhibit i have ever been in is a collection at the History Museum in Downtown Charleston SC. Its the "old museum" collection. A series of poorly stuffed extinct and endangered animals from the late 1800s. in short. It would be more appropriate in today's day and age. But not back then. I really was just different. But not really. When studying insects and other animals even today in places they set TRAPS and identify the remains. And not just like a few. You havent discovered a new species without first collecting many specimen samples and comparing them to other closely related species.

We can know what handling with desensitized fingers can do to fragile paper though (paper being, particularly since the 19th century, often its own worst enemy), so it's very much a "lesser of two evils" choice.

It's great that you want to be sure these important objects are being handled carefully. Please be assured that in this case they are. Professional book and paper conservators , who spend a lot of their time looking at damaged old paper and determining the causes, recommend handling most books and papers, even very old and rare ones, with clean bare hands as being safer for the objects than using gloves. Two experienced conservators published a very thorough investigation of the question in International Preservation News, which you can read at www.ifla.org/VI/4/news/ipnn37.pdf. Here's a summary of the important points: There is no scientific evidence that skin chemicals damage paper; basic hand-washing is enough to remove any dirt or other substances that might be transferred to the objects. The article doesn't mention bacteria, but if you're washing your hands in the way that public health experts recommend we always do, you'll get rid of enough of them. (Don't apply hand sanitizer afterward, by the way--those will leave gooey residues that can damage paper.) The authors do point out that most old books and papers have been extensively handled over decades and centuries, often in dirty, smoky environments and by people whose sanitary practices were "less-than-ideal," and yet show very little evidence of it. Gloves easily pick up dirt and other substances from anything you touch--oil and makeup from your face and hair, bits of dirt or polish from the edges of furniture, debris from disintegrating leather bindings--and transfer them to the paper. You can keep changing gloves, but it's easier and cheaper just to rewash your hands if they get to look or feel dirty. The biggest problem with gloves is that they reduce the touch sensitivity you need to handle paper, especially fragile paper, safely. Try this at home: take an old magazine or a beat-up paperback you don't care about, put on a pair of cotton gloves, and page through it. Now imagine you're doing this with something very rare and valuable. Still sure that's the safest way? Gloves are appropriate for certain other materials, like photos, metals, and fine textiles. It was only in the 1990s that many librarians and archivists, seeing them in supply catalogs, seem to have got the idea that they were the standard of care for all special materials. It never became the standard in most places, but this coincided with the rise of shows like Antiques Roadshow, History Detectives, and so on, where most people got their first look at people handling rare materials in libraries and archives, so gloves became part of the popular image. TV crews like them because they help things look more important and special, and I've known crews to try to make curators and archivists wear them for a shoot even after being told it is against their policy for all the reasons given above. In short, it's always important to handle rare objects carefully. But what constitutes proper care varies with the type of object.

Elizabeth Fuller wow. That's a great information! Are you a conservator by any chance? Btw, I can't see the link :(

@@fastauntie There is also a video here featuring several curators on this very subject. People tend to invest objects, including plain cotton gloves, with magical properties, not bothering to stop and think about whether it makes any sense.

Calm down and dont be dramatic. They use clean jands instead so they can feel wether the paper is ripping or not. Its better and less risk of damage. They do use gloves on objects and sometimes pictures. But on paper its a big no no