Harrison Institute

Meanwhile, Beatrix Lanzinger has continued her work of developing a
digital library, which currently includes 2960 pdfs of books and scientific
papers primarily concerned with the bat faunas of Asia and Africa. This is
not only invaluable for our students in the Old World tropics but is also a
great resource for our own staff as they have a ‘virtual library’ on their
laptops whilst they are travelling and researching abroad. The need for
such a library will continue to grow as more and more young researchers
are trained in the biodiversity-rich but ‘library-poor’, developing world. Currently, these students and their supervisors
lack access to literature that we in the West take for granted. In addition, during the year, Beatrix designed and
supervised the redevelopment of the garden, which has the dual aims of reducing the cost of day to day maintenance
whilst providing a beautiful setting for the Institute.
The Institute’s work in India has been led by Dr
Nikky Thomas. In April, she organised a
training workshop in acoustics and bat
taxonomy, which was hosted by Dr Juliet
Vanitharani of Sarah Tucker College,
Tirunelveli. Additional input was given by Dr
Debbie Barlett of Greenwich University, UK.
The workshop had two principal aims: (1) to
develop capacity in bat research in the Indian
Subcontinent (workshop delegates included
Nikky Thomas (Institute researcher) presenting to the
Indian press and TV during the bat acoustics and
taxonomy workshop , which she co-ordinated in Tamil
Nadu in April, 2012.
Above: Palaeontological field work was conducted at Ferrycliff, Suffolk as part
of the on-going researches of the Harrison Institute of the mammals of this early
Eocene site (approx. 55 million years before present). Team members on the
(very muddy) August field trip (left to right) were Malcolm Pearch, David Ward
(Institute Trustee), Andrew Ward (Institute volunteer), Danielle McIntyre, Ben
Michaels (Oxford University), Alison Ward, Dr Simon Jackson (Natural History
Museum, London), Ian and Alex McIntyre, David Harrison and Penny Wotton
[McIntyre] (Institute solicitor). Photo by Paul Bates.
Left: Malcolm Pearch (Institute curator and administrator) supervising Jasmine
O’Callaghan and Imogen Cox of Combe Bank School, who are working as
volunteers at the Institute as part of their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme.
3