Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019 - 11

Society Reports
For questions about the Publications Committee, please use
the following contact emails:
Collection Forum editor@spnhc.org
SPNHC Connection newsletter@spnhc.org
Leaflets bzimkus@oeb.harvard.edu
Respectfully submitted,
Mariel Campbell, Chair

Recognition & Grants Committee
The Recognition and Grants Committee
is charged with promoting and reviewing the various awards of the Society.
These are in recognition of a member's
service, as a vendor recognition, or as a
Faber Innovation grant.
Three awards were presented at the
ABM at the SPNHC meeting in Chicago-a Special Service award to the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) at the Field Museum of Natural History for
hosting a stimulating and well-attended meeting, and to the
Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA) and the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) for their continued support of the museum community through advocacy and
lobbying work on behalf of collections.
At the SPNHC Council meeting in Chicago, changes were
approved for the Society's Faber Grant with the goal of
expanding the scope of the grant to include a wider range of
work. To reflect these changes the Faber Research Grant will
now be known as the Faber Innovation Grant. The committee
looks forward to the increase of member applicants for this
important grant opportunity to address issues on the management, care, conservation, or use of natural history collections.
Announcements for the various SPNHC awards and the Faber
Innovation Grant are included in this newsletter and were
also announced via NHCOLL-L. Members are encouraged to
submit applications to acknowledge the hard work of peers
and to apply for the collections-related innovation grant,
respectively.
Respectively submitted,
Linda S. Ford, Chair

Web & Social Media Committee
The new website is finally here! I will
be contacting the committee chairs for
updates, and will be doing some clean
up here and there. If you haven't already
done so, check it out at spnhc.org.
There may be a few hiccups along the
way, so please let me know if you have
any issues, and please continue to send
us your job posting and calendar events to
webmaster@spnhc.org.
Respectfully submitted,
Liath Appleton, Chair

Sessional Committees
Collection Theft and Security Monitoring of Collections
This group was formed after the plenary
talk by Kirk Wallace Johnson, author
of The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of
the Century. The first meeting was as
a special interest group held on Friday,
May 31, 2019, at the Field Museum
during the SPNHC 34th Annual Meeting. Twenty-three people attended.
The meeting had three main aims:
1. To identify appropriate communication channels.
2. To identify preventative actions.
3. To identify appropriate monitoring
systems for stolen objects.

Communication Channels

A range of existing communication channels, including listservs and social media were identified.
*

NHCOLL-L (SPNHC)

NATSCA

Museum Security Network

CETAF

Society for Mineral Museum Professionals

ICOM-NATHIST
September 2019 * 11

https://spnhc.org

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019