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.
In August, the National Science Foundation (NSF) made seven new awards in the Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections program. Two new Thematic Collection Networks (TCN) will address “grand challenges” in the areas of microfungi and marine invertebrates fossils. Both projects will bring together institutions across the country to digitize their biological specimens. The Microfungi Collections […]
The International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will hold a virtual conference to scope two forthcoming assessments on invasive species and conservation of biodiversity. The e-conference will take place in three sessions over three weeks from 7-25 September 2015. Participants will provide input through online discussion boards. That information will be used to […]
The National Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Program is partnering with the National Preservation Institute to offer in-depth training on preparing for and writing NAGPRA grant proposals will be held twice during the month of September 2015. Learn how to assess the needs of a NAGPRA program, identify fundable projects, and write […]
The upcoming Research Data Sharing without Barriers Plenary will include a session on “Unlocking the potential of biological collections data for climate change research.” The session will highlight successful case studies on digitization and label transcription processes and will discuss the challenges regarding the mobilization of data and fit-for-use of datasets in climate and environmental […]
iDigBio will be offering a four-part webinar series on the value of digitizing vertebrate collections. The webinars will emphasize the imaging of herps, mammals, birds, and fishes. The online events may be of interest to vertebrate zoologists, curators, collections managers, and others. September 8, 3-4 pm EDT The Value of Digitizing Mammal Collections Cody Thompson, […]
Members of the Natural Science Collections Alliance can participate for free in the Biological Sciences Congressional District Visits event. The event is an opportunity for museum directors and professionals, curators and collection managers, researchers, post docs, and graduate students to meet with their federal and state elected officials. Participants are encouraged to host their elected […]
The NSC Alliance, the Biodiversity Collections Network (formerly Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance Research Coordination Network), and iDigBio sponsored the Plenary Session at the 2015 Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections conference in Gainesville, Florida. Talks from the opening session were recorded and are being posted online. The first set of talks are now […]
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 […]