Several symposia are already planned as part of the RCN activities. As the RCN develops, we hope to be able to sponsor other symposia in other forums that are relevant to natural history collections.

Symposium I - SPNHC Best Practices

The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections is hosting a Best Practices Symposium at the NSCA-SPNHC annual meeting May 13-17, 2008, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This session will focus on community practices and standards and is the first of what we hope will be an annual session on best practices and standards in managing and caring for natural history collections.
 
In addition to several invited speakers, we are planning to include several 15-minute contributed papers and would like to invite the community to submit abstracts for this symposium. Instructions on submitting an abstract for the meeting can be found at: http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/nsca-spnhc/abstract.htm.  The deadline for receipt of the abstract is 14 March 2008.  Please indicate that you wish the abstract to be considered for the Best Practices Symposium.

SPNHC is a participant in the National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network (RCN) for Building a National Community of Natural History Collections.  One of the goals of the network is aimed at enhancing communication among the personnel managing and using collections, as well as providing resources on “best practices” that should be used in managing and caring for collections. 

Please direct any questions to James Macklin:

Symposium I: SPNHC Best Practices is cosponsored by the CollectionsWeb RCN.

Symposium II - Update on the CollectionsWeb RCN

A second symposium to be hosted at the 2008 joint meeting between the Natural Science Collections Alliance and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections is being planned. This symposium will provide an update on the activities of the CollectionsWeb RCN and other collections related activities as well as a panel on the topic of funding for Natural History Collections. More on this symposium soon.

Sponsored and Organized by the CollectionsWeb RCN. Contact if you have any questions.

Location: NSCA-SPNHC Joint Meeting, 13-17 May 2008
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

To be organized by the Natural Science Collections Alliance

Symposium III - Biodiversity Informatics: Progress and Potential in the Southeastern USA

CollectionsWeb and the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC) will co-host a third symposium on Biodiversity Informatics at the annual meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists (ASB) on 1-4 April 2009 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Biodiversity informatics has the potential to provide significant contributions to our understanding of evolution, biotic responses to climatic change, ecology and conservation biology.  In order to maximize the potential of this burgeoning field, the legacy data held in the life science collections must be made accessible to the greater science community.  There are many ongoing efforts to access the life science data housed in museums, colleges and universities, state and federal agencies and in private collections.  These efforts fall into three categories: 1) data standards to maximize access, 2) taxon-by-taxon best practices to facilitate data acquisition, and 3) development of social networks to maximize participation among data providers.

This symposium will provide an overview of best practices and ongoing efforts in biodiversity informatics.  The ultimate goal of the symposium is to provide the framework that, when coupled with leadership from ASB, could result in positioning the Southeast to obtain funds and resources to become a global leader in biodiversity informatics.   

Organized by Zack Murrell and Alan Prather.
Contact if you have any questions.

Future Symposium:


Natural Science Collections Alliance Annual Meeting
Location to be announced: Summer 2010

To be organized by the Natural Science Collections Alliance