Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019 - 4

President Report - Barbara M. Thiers
It was great to see so many of you
at our fabulous SPNHC meeting
in Chicago in May, with all of the
many wonderful presentations,
field trips, workshops and social
events! A heartfelt thanks again
to Paul Mayer and his organizing
committee at the Field Museum
for showing us such a good time.
This year's conference marked
the end of Ruth O'Leary's term as
SPNHC Treasurer. We thank her
again for her many years of dedicated service, and welcome
the new SPNHC Treasurer, Melinda Peters, as well as our two
new Members-at-Large, Paul Mayer and Anna Monfils.
I hope by now you have all had a chance to look at our new
SPNHC website at spnhc.org. We are working on some finishing touches and making changes based on member feedback. The work of the Website Redesign sessional committee
is now complete, and the committee is hereby disbanded. I
thank Andy Bentley, Jessica Cundiff, Linda Ford, Melinda
Peters and most especially SPNHC webmaster Liath Appleton for their help on this endeavor.
I have recently appointed three new sessional committees,
listed below. These were first announced in mid-July through
NHCOLL-L, and since then there have been many expressions of interest. We can still use more members, so please
contact the chair if you are interested.
Education Committee
Chair: Anna Monfils
Charge:
*

Review SPNHC's contributions to education, both formal, informal and workforce training; identify gaps.

Affirm the current committee structures and charges for
Emerging Professionals and Professional Development,
and propose a modified structure, if the committee thinks
this is warranted.

Propose short and long-term goals for SPNHC's educational mission.

Collection Theft and Security Monitoring of Collections
Chair: Paul Mayer and Rob Zschernitz
Charge:
*

Plan a session on the subject for the Edinburgh conference.

Determine the best strategy for SPNHC members to share
information about potential threats.

Develop a resource page for the website about collections

4 * SPNHC Connection

security issues-there were a variety of suggestions of
online monitoring tools at the SIG in Chicago that could
be shared, for example.
*

Propose short and long-term goals for involvement in this
topic, if warranted.

Collections and the Biodiversity Crisis
Chair: Libby Elwood
Charge:
*

Consider what, if anything, SPNHC should do to raise the
profile of collections in mitigating biodiversity loss, both
scientific and public awareness aspects; make recommendations for activities that could accomplish this.

Propose strategies to help collections highlight their own
efforts in this area.

Propose short and long-term goals for involvement in this
topic, if warranted.

In other news, in April 2019, I signed an MOU on behalf of

"Looking ahead to the fall,
we are planning to begin
work on a new strategic plan
for SPNHC, under the leadership of President-Elect and
Chair of the Long Range
Planning Committee, Deb
Trock. Look for a survey
in September that will ask
for your thoughts on what
SPNHC's focus should be for
the next five years."
SPNHC with the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF). In this MOU, the signatories agree to invite exofficio representatives from each group to attend the meetings
of the other; to collaborate to provide guidance and directions
for productive collaborative/joint CETAF-SPNHC work, such
as the organization of events; to actively seek opportunities
to cooperate; and when considered appropriate by both parties, initiate and implement joint actions, and draw on mutual
synergies and complementarities.

https://spnhc.org https://www.cetaf.org/ https://www.cetaf.org/

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections September 2019

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