Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2020 - 4

President Report - Barbara M. Thiers
2019 was a year of considerable
activity around natural history
collections. We saw the publication by SPNHC of a wonderful
new book, Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage, edited by
Lisa Elkin and Christopher Norris,
which is selling like hotcakes! Our
European colleagues have been
very busy discussing many aspects
of the management of physical
and digital collections through
events sponsored by SYNTHESIS+ and ICEDIG (Innovation
and Consolidation for Large Scale Digitisation of Natural
Heritage) as they gear up for DiSSCo (Distributed System of
Scientific Collections). In the U.S., two groups spent a lot of
time discussing collections. The Interagency Working Group
on Scientific Collections (IWGSC) is reviewing the role of
federal collections, and a National Academy of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine, Biological Collections committee is preparing a report at the request of NSF on the future of
U.S. natural history and living stock collections. Andy Bentley, former SPNHC president, Talia Karim, current Council
Member-at-Large and I are all serving on the National Academy committee, whose report should be released in April of
this year. We anticipate that the IWGSC report will also be
released fairly soon. Keep any eye out for these-both reports
are highly relevant to SPNHC.
The Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), for which
Andy Bentley, current Past President Linda Ford and I are
members of the advisory board, continued throughout the
year to promote the Extended Specimen Network plan that
we released last March. I gave presentations about the plan
at the Botany 2019 meeting in Tucson, Arizona, in July, and
at the Biodiversity Next conference in Leiden (co-authored
by Member-at-Large Anna Monfils), in October 2019. BCoN
was also very involved in this year's annual meeting of the
AIBS Council of Member Societies and Organizations held
December 2019, in Washington, DC. The title of the meeting
was "Beyond Specimens." The program included yet another
presentation on the Extended Specimen Network, and a spirited presentation on "Biodiversity Literacy for Undergraduate
Education" by Anna Monfils.
If you were to look back to my last President's report, you
would find that I announced that a survey related to a new
SPNHC strategic plan would be circulated in the fall. Clearly
that did not happen. That timeline assumed that both the National Academy of Sciences and Interagency Working Group
reports would be available to inform the survey. Work on the
SPNHC strategic plan has been delayed because the findings
4 * SPNHC Connection

of these reports will be important to consider in formulating
a new strategic plan. These reports will give insights into
the perceived strengths and weaknesses of collections based
on consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, and will
make recommendations that may fall within the purview of
SPNHC. However, in order to make some progress toward
the plan without the benefit of the reports, we will begin
outlining our goals and objectives with the understanding that
adjustments may be made later based on their recommendations. You will hear more about this soon.
The results of the SPNHC 2020 elections are in, and I am
pleased to congratulate Paul Mayer, incoming PresidentElect, Cindy Opitz, who has been re-elected as Secretary, and
Shelley James, Randy Singer, and Vanessa Delnavaz who will
become Members-at-Large at the Edinburgh conference. Vanessa will take over the remainder of Paul Mayer's MAL term,
which he will give up when he becomes President-Elect.

"The results of the SPNHC
2020 elections are in, and
I am pleased to congratulate Paul Mayer, incoming
President-Elect, Cindy Opitz,
who has been re-elected as
Secretary, and Shelley James,
Randy Singer, and Vanessa
Delnavaz who will become
Members-at-Large at the Edinburgh conference. Vanessa
will take over the remainder
of Paul Mayer's MAL term,
which he will give up when he
becomes President-Elect."
We were saddened to hear of the passing of Janet Waddington, formerly of the Royal Ontario Museum, Paleontology
collection. Janet was a SPNHC pioneer, co-organizer of the
workshop that led to the formation of SPNHC. There are
more extensive tributes in the works for Janet by SPNHC
members who knew her best.
I am sure you are all looking forward to the Edinburgh meet-

https://store.culturalheritage.org/site/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=AIC-31 https://store.culturalheritage.org/site/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=AIC-31 https://www.synthesys.info/ https://www.icedig.eu/ https://www.dissco.eu/ https://usfsc.nal.usda.gov/ https://usfsc.nal.usda.gov/ http://www.nas-sites.org/dels/studies/biological-collections/ http://www.nas-sites.org/dels/studies/biological-collections/ https://bcon.aibs.org/ http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/the-extended-specimen-report/

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2020

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