Natural Science Collections Alliance
Our members are part of an international community of museums, botanical gardens, herbariums, universities and other institutions that house natural science collections and utilize them in research, exhibitions, academic and informal science education, and outreach activities.
A recent article on Slate.com discusses the value of collecting butterflies for natural history collections. “The Most Favored Insect” by Andrew Warren of the Florida Museum of Natural History makes a case for why butterfly collecting is still relevant in modern science. Several new species of butterflies were recently identified because of genetic analysis. Warren […]
The 2015 Biodiversity Information Standards Conference is seeking abstracts that address the conference theme of applications, standards, and capacity building for sustaining global biodiversity. The conference will be held from 28 September to 3 October 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya. Subprograms will include digitization, semantic technologies, phyloinformatics, outreach and collaboration, epublications, trait data, and conservation informatics. […]
Congress is advancing legislation to fund the Institute of Museum and Library Services (ILMS) at the same amount next year as it currently receives. Despite having almost $4 billion less to spend overall than last year, the House subcommittee proposed level funding of $227.9 million for IMLS. Details are not yet available on the allocation […]
Abstracts are sought on research uses of digitized geoscience data and recent advances in data-publishing and mobilization, and uses of digitized data for outreach and education. The session will be held during the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland on 1-4 November 2015. The session will highlight paleontology and geology research that […]
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee is soliciting presentations from museums, Indian tribes, and Federal agencies on the progress made, and any barriers encountered, in implementing NAGPRA and (2) the outcomes of disputes reviewed by the Review Committee relating to the return of items. The presentations will be part of the committee’s […]
The new program solicitation for the Collections in Support of Biological Research program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) is now available. The program provides funds for improvements to secure and organize collections that are significant to the NSF BIO-funded research community; to secure collections-related data for sustained, accurate, and efficient accessibility to the biological […]
The National Science Foundation has released the newest solicitation for proposals for the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program. The program aims to enhance and expand digital data documenting existing vouchered biological and paleontological collections and to advance scientific knowledge by improving access to digitized information residing in vouchered scientific collections across the United States. […]
The 5th Annual Faces of Biology Photo Contest is now open for submissions. The competition, sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), recognizes scientists who use imagery to communicate aspects of biological research to the public and policymakers. The theme of the contest is “Faces of Biology.†Photographs entered into the competition must […]
Dear NSC Alliance Membership, The NSC Alliance is cosponsoring with the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN, http://bcon.aibs.org) a Collections Communications Workshop this September 1-2. The workshop will be held at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. The BCoN (recently renamed from NIBA Research Coordination Network) is a five-year Research Coordination Network grant funded […]