Mark Carnall

Collections Manager, Life

Responsible for vertebrate and non-arthropod invertebrate collections
Curatorial interests: collections management, research collections, and conservation and university teaching
Research interests: general natural history, digitisation and natural history collections, historical preparation, teaching collections, and Oxford University Museum of Natural History collectors and collections

Mark Carnall is the curator of the 150,000 specimens held in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. He has previously worked and volunteered at local authority, national and other university natural history museums.

In addition to managing collections, he lectures on biology, palaeobiology and museological topics. His research interests are digitisation in museums, public engagement and natural history, sector wide advocacy for collections, models, casts and replicas as well as the implications on 3D printing on museum collections.

In addition to collections management, Mark contributes to public engagement from stand-up comedy about natural history museums through to lectures, informal talks and workshops for all age groups.

Carnall, M. A. (2017) How to be more helpful to researchers. In The Museum Blog Book. Museums Etc. ISBN 978-1-910144-84-8. Original blog post here.

Carnall, M.A (2015) Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month, or how to get some use out of your useless fossils. The Palaeontological Association Newsletter: 89 75-81 (Available here)

Ross, C. Carnall, M., Hudson-Smith, A., Warwick, C., Terras. M. and Gray, S. (2014) Enhancing Museum Narratives:Tales of Things and UCL’s Grant Museum. In Farman, J. (Ed). The Mobile Story, Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-64148-7

Carnall, M (2013) Conversation Pieces Inspirational objects in UCL’s historic collections (editor). Oxford, Shire Publications. ISBN 978-1-78200-651-0

Carnall, M., Ashby J. and Ross, C (2013) Natural history museums as provocateurs for dialogue and debate. Museum Management and Curatorship. (Available here)

Carnall, M.A (2012) Virtual Palaeontology. The Palaeontological Association Newsletter: 79 82-87 (Available here)

Carnall, M.A (2012) Walking with Dragons: CGIs in Wildlife Documentaries. In Bentowska-Kafel, A., Denard, H. and Baker, D (eds) Paradata and Transparency in Virtual Heritage, Pages 81-95 ISBN 9780754675839

Carnall, M. A. McEnroe, N (2011) Relocating the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, UCL. Collections A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals: Volume 7 Number 2 Pages 123-144

Carnall, M.A (2011) Eating Cats. In Chang, M. and Meusberger, L (eds.) The Food Junctions Cookbook, Pages 50-51 ISBN 9780957035409

Carnall, M.A (2011) Completely Rethinking the Organisation of Natural History Museums: A Taxonomically Arranged National Collection. NatSCA News:21 ISSN 1741-3974

Carnall, M.A. (2010) Google Me a Penguin: Natural History Collections and the Web. NatSCA News: 19 ISSN 1741-3974

Carnall, M. A & Cook, B (2010) The Virtual Museum. In Cook, B., Reynolds, R. and Speight, C (eds.) Museums and Design Education: Looking to Learn, Learning to See, Pages 165-176

ISBN: 0754677133

Carnall, M. (2009) Beyond teaching: Chasing the Online Audience. Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the International Committee of ICOM for University Museums and Collections (UMAC) (Available here)

Carnall, M. A. (2007) Zoo Store 1 at the Natural History Museum. In Keene, S. (ed.) Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, Vol: S1, Pages 20-36, ISSN: 0965-9315

Full publications

Module co-ordinator, ‘Museums in the Modern Age’ for Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment. 2018.

Institutional Project Partner Lead, Out in Oxford, an LGBTQ+ Trail of the University of Oxford’s Collections. 2017.

Speaker and Steering Group Member, Popularising Palaeontology Network. 2016–. Funded by King’s College London and AHRC.

Collections Manager (Life Collections) EMu Collections Data Migration Project. 2015–18.