In the seventeenth century, many members of the upper classes collected objects for 'cabinets of curiosities', amusing their guests with rare and unusual specimens of natural history. Shells were one of the most popular objects among collectors, and in the eighteenth century, as major voyages of discovery made available new and previously unrecorded species, these shells came to be studied in a more scientific way.

The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) is a United Kingdom national facility designed to hold, manage and distribute data concerning the marine environment. Data holdings include biological, chemical, physical and geophysical data, containing measurements of nearly 22,000 different variables.