Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2016 - 5

President Report - Linda S. Ford 2016 (Special Service Award). Congratulations also went to the recipients of the top three poster awards at the 2016 conference, which were Kirsten E. Nicholson and Lillian Hendricks; Viviane Leyman, Sofie De Smedt and Piet Stoffelen; and Suzie Li Wan Po. I would also like to thank those who completed terms of service or stepped down this year. Andy Bentley completed his two-year term as President; Chris Norris completed his combined six years of service as President-Elect, President, and Past-President; and Kelly Sendall and Robert Huxley completed three years of service as a Member-at-Large. Those who stepped down included Ann Molineux as Secretary of the Society; Tim White and James Macklin as Co-chairs of the Best Practices Committee; Sally Shelton as Chair of Legislation and Regulations; Claire Valentine as Co-chair of the Long-Range Planning Committee; Chris Norris as Chair of the US Federal Collections Sessional Committee; Tim White as the Vender Liaison on the Conference Committee; and Annette Van Aken as the SPNHC representative to the Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS). Looking forward, we welcome Barbara Theirs as PresidentElect; Cindy Opitz as Secretary; and Miranda Lowe and Kelly Tomajko as newly-elected Members-at-Large and, for the remainder of the term, Melinda Peters replaced the Member-at-Large position vacated by Barbara Thiers. We also welcome Jessica Cundiff and Breda Zimkus as Co-chairs of the Best Practices Committee; Margaret Landis as Chair of the Citations Subcommittee under Best Practices; Stephanie Carson and Dirk Neumann as Co-chairs of Legislation and Regulations; Suzanne Ryder as Co-chair of the Long-Range Planning Committee; Matt Brown as Chair of the US Federal Collections Sessional Committee; Marcia Revelez as the Vender Liaison on the Conference Committee; James Macklin as the Technical Liaison on the Web Committee; and John Simmons as the SPNHC representative of both the Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS) and the Registrars Committee, American Association of Museums (RCAAM). Looking ahead to conferences, our plans for annual meetings now extend to 2018. Next year's meeting in Colorado, hosted by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Botanic Gardens, is shaping up to be a truly great meeting. The theme will be "The Next Generation in Best Practice." In 2018, for the first time in the Society's history, we will be going to the Indo-Australian region to Dunedin, New Zealand, and the Otago Museum. It's a very exhilarating time to be part of SPNHC. Through the continued dedication of our members, we are seeing an impact in areas outside of our museums, nationally and glob- ally. This can only help our unwavering fundamental goal of caring for, conserving and promoting our natural history collections. Thus, with all of the opportunities that this time presents, membership and participation in the Society has never been more important. I'm very excited about what the next two years will bring and I'm certain you feel the same. I encourage you to feel free to reach out to me or to any of the society's officers. As a member, I encourage you to become involved with any of the society's various committees and be part of the changes. As a member of SPNHC, you are in a great place to inspire your colleagues to become members as well - now is an opportune time for you to act and play a significant part in charting the direction where our Society will go next! Profile I've always loved natural history. In graduate school at the University of Texas at Arlington, my colleagues and I used to work in the collections for fun. It was exciting to be able to figure out a problem or at least document its status. The idea that the result of this work could potentially be utilized by other researchers, both today and in the future, was exhilarating. When I moved to the University of Kansas, I met John E. Simmons, who introduced me to best practices in collections work and to SPNHC. I was intrigued to find a group of like-minded people who were striving to standardize concepts that I considered fun and ensuring that these standards had lasting and constructive effects on collections. I was converted and proud when John and I published a paper advocating for managers of such collections to be seen as professionals in their own right. After study at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, I became the project manager on an NSF project to digitize a natural history collection. At that point my career path was set. I not only love natural history collections, but I learned to believe in museums and feel committed to their mission. Since joining SPNHC in 1997 and attending my first meeting in 1998 in Edmonton, Canada, the dedication and commitment of the society's members to further its mission has been a constant motivation for my own involvement. It is the understanding that we are all working on something bigger than ourselves and a commitment to do our very best to infuse meaning into the concept of "in perpetuity" that continues to fuel my ongoing involvement. I'm very honored to do my part in my new role in the Society, and I look forward to SPNHC continuing to advocate for the improvement and advancement of our treasured collections. ----------------Linda S. Ford is Director of Collections Operations for the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. She oversees museum-wide projects and initiatives that encompass the museum's ten research collection departments, including the museum-wide database and IT infrastructure. September 2016 * 5 http://www.dmns.org/ http://www.botanicgardens.org/ http://www.otagomuseum.nz/

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