Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2015 - (Page 4)

From the President New and Exciting Times The New Year is already in full swing, but I thought I would take this opportunity to first wish you a happy, healthy and productive 2015. I hope you have all returned from the break energized and ready to tackle all those outstanding projects and to start new ones. The society has been invigorated by recent progress on various initiatives. Over the last year or so, SPNHC has been actively engaging with like-minded societies and organizations, and some of these collaborations are beginning to bear fruit. From our agreement with iDigBio to pursue digitization initiatives across the spectrum of natural history and work on best practices, to our partnership with the American Institute of Conservation (AIC) and the Smithsonian Institution to publish Preventive Conservation: Approaches to Collection Storage based on the 1995 Storage of Natural History Collections: A Preventive Conservation Approach, we have strengthened our existing networks and created new opportunities to work together with others. These agreements, in some cases, have taken the form of formal MOU's with various organizations and have resulted in the installation of new representatives to foster new and build on existing relationships. Two new representatives have recently come on board: Annette van Aken from Yale has agreed to represent our interests with the recently created Association of Registrars and Collection Specialists (ARCS); Kelly Sendall from the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, Canada, will be acting as liaison between SPNHC and the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada (ANHMC). That brings to 20 the number of representatives to other societies and organizations who will be sharing news of their society's efforts with SPNHC and vice versa, through their representation on Council and reports in this newsletter. They have also been tasked with investigating ways in which the societies can work together on mutually beneficial projects. We are investigating other such relationships and encourage anyone interested in representing any other society with similar goals and aspirations to contact us. These relationships are important not only to us and the other entities but also to another major initiative in which we are involved. Late last year we were awarded a 5-year NSF-funded Research Coordination Network (RCN) grant to investigate the building of a sustainable community to implement a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance (NIBA). This is a collaboration with the Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA) and the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). Although considerable work has already been done by iDigBio in the realm of digitization and access to collections, a lot of work remains to be done. The funding for iDigBio will eventually run dry and the task of this RCN is to investigate ways of sustaining and expanding upon this great start. The RCN's work has already begun with the formation of an Advisory Council who will lead the process and schedule workshops around the key goals of NIBA (http://www.aibs. org/public-policy/biocollections.html). They will hold their second meeting in Washington, DC, at the end of February to begin to formulate an action plan. Building and engaging a large community of stakeholders and interested parties both within and outside our traditional realm is key to the success of this plan and that is where you come in. SPNHC, as a leading partner in this initiative and having within its membership the knowledgeable, dynamic, enthusiastic people who will form the driving forces behind any such plan, will need its members to become fully involved in the process now. Your ideas and views are important and your input is solicited at this early stage through the NIBA website at www.NIBAlliance.org. Create a profile on the site to register your interest and receive updates and more information. I encourage all SPNHC members to do so. There is more about this initiative elsewhere in this newsletter. One of the ways in which you can become more engaged in the society's business in general is by joining one of our many committees which are actively pursuing the goals of our society. The list of committees and their remit can be found on the SPNHC website (http://www.spnhc.org/6/ committees), and reports from each committee outlining their charge and progress can be found in this newsletter. This year we also formed a new Sessional Committee on US Federal Collections, chaired by Chris Norris and brought about after fruitful talks some time ago between SPNHC and numerous Federal agencies. They have been asked to consider ways in which SPNHC and the various collection-holding Department of the Interior (DoI) agencies could work together to promote best practices in collections care, and to help address some of the issues of accountability for collections that are being imposed on them. We hope that "Building and engaging a large community of stakeholders and interested parties both within and outside our traditional realm is key." 4 * SPNHC Connection http://www.aibs.org/public-policy/biocollections.html http://www.aibs.org/public-policy/biocollections.html http://www.NIBAlliance.org http://www.NIBAlliance.org http://www.spnhc.org/6/committees http://www.spnhc.org/6/committees

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2015

From the President
Society Reports
What’s New
Announcements
Calendar
Features
Member Profile
Employment
Photo Credits
Governance

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2015