Every year on 18 July, the United Nations observes Nelson Mandela International Day, commemorating his life and legacy and calling for people all over the world to make a difference in their community.

On this day, we would like to dedicate a post to Mrs. Yang Changman, former curator at the Department of Zoology at the (then) University of Singapore. Mrs. Yang is also an honorary research associate here at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM), focusing on aquatic bugs.

Mrs. Yang played a pivotal role in finding a permanent home for the Zoological Reference Collection (ZRC) — now housed at LKCNHM — back when it was in danger of being discarded and lost to the world.

In recognition of her efforts to save the ZRC, Mrs. Yang was inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame earlier this year.

Back in 1972, Mrs. Yang began work as a curator for the ZRC at the University of Singapore. The collection, previously housed at the National Museum, was to be moved to the University of Singapore after it was decided that the museum would be focused on the areas of art and anthropology.

Having had no prior experience in curatorship or in managing a massive historical collection, when she first saw the collection she was overwhelmed by both its value and the enormous task that lay ahead of her.

However, her background in marine biology and the scientific training she had came in handy for the first task of creating an inventory of the collection’s specimens. Over the course of the next six months, Yang and her team of three painstakingly examined and recorded all the reference specimens in the inventory, which amounted to a total about 126,000 specimens.

After which, the specimens had to be moved from their old location within the premises of the National Museum to their first home, in Ayer Rajah. At the site, the collection was housed in five Romney huts that were like airplane hangars, with large doors and disused machinery. Mrs. Yang was initially shocked at the original bare state of the huts, with damaged doors, a leaking zinc roof, and no furniture.

After furnishing the huts, Mrs. Yang and her team had to take up the hefty task of moving about 60 lorry loads of specimens to Ayer Rajah, with a total budget of $750. Due to the limited funds, they had to scavenge packing materials in the form of cartons, old newspapers, and wooden boxes from the roadside. The move to Ayer Rajah took almost a year.

The collection was housed at Ayer Rajah for about five years. Following which, the collection had to be split up and stored at several buildings after it was moved to the Bukit Timah campus of the University of Singapore.

The next few years were a nightmare for Mrs. Yang and her staff, as the fate of the collection was in jeopardy due to an ever-growing space crunch at the Bukit Timah campus. At the same time, the new campus at Kent Ridge was still not ready.

Yet another hit came in 1979, when it was decided that Nanyang University and the University of Singapore would merge to form the present day NUS. Due to a lack of space at the Bukit Timah campus, the collection had to vacate the premises.

The collection was in danger of being broken up and passed to institutions in Malaysia, or to be sold to museums overseas. After a tumultuous few months, the collection found a new home at the old Nanyang University campus, which was now the site of the new Nanyang Technological Institute (NTI). The collection would be housed at NTI from 1980 to 1987.

Thereafter in 1987, the ZRC had a ‘homecoming’ as it moved into its new home at the lower three floors of the Science Library at the new Kent Ridge campus of NUS. At the new premises, the specimens in the collection were housed in a climate-controlled environment, and custom-made shelving compactors that were later added due to a space crunch.

In 1998, the premises was renamed the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (RMBR), with reorganisation of the facility to include an additional public gallery.

In 2015, as the former RMBR moved into the new LKCNHM building, the ZRC followed suit and moved into its new permanent home.

Today, the ZRC is the largest and most comprehensive collection of fauna from Southeast Asia. It contains over 1,000,000 zoological specimens belonging to at least 10,000 species. Many species housed in the ZRC are very rare, or have even become extinct. Thus, the specimens in the collection are irreplaceable and are of rich historical value.

The collection serves as treasured reference material for taxonomy and biodiversity researchers all over the world. We thank Mrs. Yang for her strength and courage in protecting the ZRC, persevering even in the face of adversity. Her contribution is truly invaluable to the scientific community.

References

Tan KYL (2015) Of Whales and Dinosaurs: The Story of Singapore’s Natural History Museum. NUS Press, Singapore, 304 pp.