Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2018 - 14

Society Reports
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Science advocacy

Science communication

Initiative

ESA Meeting Code of Conduct

How to become a more diverse and inclusive society.

Our next annual meeting is in the process of being planned,
but is set for November 10-11, 2018, in Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada. The program is still in the development
process, and registration for that meeting is not yet open.
SPNHC members are welcome to follow the program as it
develops by checking our website: http://ecnweb.org/default.
asp
Respectfully submitted,
Daniel K. Young, SPNHC representative to ECN

iDigBio
Greetings from iDigBio. Our project is
in year seven out of ten now, and focusing heavily on facilitating research and
educational use of scientific collections
data, and sustainability plans for going
beyond year ten. If your organization
has developed educational materials for
using collections data in the classroom,
please share with iDigBio Education
and Outreach and BLUE. For SPNHC-TDWG 2018, iDigBio
staff appreciate the unique opportunity to reach both of these
vital communities at a single meeting. Local organizers are
busy organizing a large number of submitted activities at this
very moment. For example, we submitted proposals with
collaborators for some time to share and discuss data provider
experiences using aggregator data quality feedback; sustaining use of digital collections data in education, outreach and
research; future collections specimen data quality needs and
insights; and collections-level metadata standards. We hope
to offer an Instructor Training for The Carpentries in the preSPNHC-TDWG 2018 weekend. Be on the lookout for details
if you are interested for yourself, or your organization, in
becoming an active member of this biodiversity informatics
capacity and community building worldwide effort.
Respectfully submitted, and in anticipation,
Deborah Paul, SPNHC representative to iDigBio

International Society for Biological and
Environmental Repositories
The International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories
(ISBER) Best Practices present the
most effective practices for the management of specimen collections, including evidence-based or consensus-based
practices for collection, long-term
storage, retrieval and distribution of
specimens. The fourth edition of the
ISBER Best Practices was released January 31, 2018, which
reviewed and revised the third edition (published in 2012) to
reflect advances in research and technology. One of the major
goals of the newest edition is to provide information on how
practices or policies associated with clinical biorepositories
that store human samples differ from those in non-human
biorepositories (e.g., natural history museums, zoos, botanical
gardens, herbaria). The updated ISBER Best Practices can be
found at http://www.isber.org/?page=BPR.
On December 5, 2017, the ISBER President, Dr. Zisis
Kozlakidis and Director of the China National GeneBank
(CNGB), Yonghong Mei, signed a cooperation agreement.
The organizations have agreed to establish a long-term, indepth cooperation to establish a global alliance with the goal
of sequencing endangered animals.
The ISBER 2018 annual meeting (Thinking Big in Texas:
Seizing Big Opportunities in Biobanking Through Data, Collaboration and Innovation) will be held in Dallas, Texas, May
20-24, 2018.
Respectfully submitted,
Breda M. Zimkus, SPNHC representative to ISBER

Paleontological Society
The 2017 meeting of the Paleontological Society (PS) was held during the
Geological Society of America (GSA)
meeting in Seattle, Washington, October
22-25.
The PS Collections Committee did not
meet, but the committee hopes to convene at next year's meeting.
The next meeting of the Paleontological Society will be held
during the Geological Society of America (GSA) meeting in

14 * SPNHC Connection

http://www.ecnweb.org/default.asp http://www.ecnweb.org/default.asp http://www.isber.org/?page=BPR https://www.idigbio.org/education https://www.idigbio.org/education https://www.biodiversityliteracy.com/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2018