Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2020 - 5

President Report - Barbara M. Thiers
ing as much as I am! If you have visited the website recently
you will see that the schedule is shaping up nicely, and the
symposia, field trips, and collection tours, to say nothing of
the social events, all sound wonderful!

co in 2011-but it was love at first meeting! SPNHC instantly
became my favorite professional society. I am honored to be
leading this organization for two years, and hope to help the
Society continue all of its fine programs.

Plans are also moving along for SPNHC 2021 in my hometown, San Francisco, hosted by my beloved childhood
museum, the California Academy of Sciences. We'll hear
more about this in Edinburgh, of course. We still do not have
a venue for the 2022 meeting, so if we are going to have a
conference that year, a host will have to step up pretty soon!
Please contact President-Elect Deb Trock if you have any
interest in hosting a SPNHC conference.

----------------Barbara M. Thiers is the Patricia K. Holmgren Director,
and Curator of Bryophytes, at the William and Lynda Steere
Herbarium, New York Botanical Garden.

There are other conferences that may be of interest to SPNHC
members, especially those in the U.S. who are unable to
travel to Edinburgh this year. There is the fourth Digital Data
in Biodiversity Research Conference June 1-3, 2020, Indiana
University, Bloomington, Indiana, and also the Biodiversity
Summit 2020, September 20-25, 2020, Alexandria, Virginia,
sponsored by iDigBio, Smithsonian (NMNH), GBIF and
TDWG.
Additionally, be on the lookout for information about an interesting virtual workshop in the coming months, "Advancing
the Catalogue of the World's Natural History Collections."
Sponsored by SYNTHESIS+, this international low carbon
consultation, in which any interested person anywhere in the
world can participate, will begin with the circulation of an
ideas paper developed by a group of coordinators, followed
by webinars, discussion threads, contributed documents and
short videos submitted in response to the paper. Contributions
will be summarized in a white paper, to be completed in mid2020.
Clearly 2020 will be another big year for collections, and I
look forward to talking with you about it all in Edinburgh!
Profile
After receiving my Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts
in Botany in the early 1980s, I joined the staff of the New
York Botanical Garden and have stayed there ever since. I
loved all aspects of work in a large collection institution, but
the volume of specimens to be managed led me to become
interested in the application of computer technology both
for more efficient collections management and to maximize
the research impact of herbarium collections. It is extremely
gratifying to me to have seen our digitization program at
NYBG grow to the robust program it is today with approximately half of our nearly eight million specimens digitized.

Calling All Bloggers
Cracking the Collections, the EPG's blog
designed to discuss
natural history collections topics relevant
to both emerging and
experienced professionals, is seeking new blog post
submissions. Take a
look at the submission categories here.
We need the EPG
community and the overall SPNHC community to
contribute to make this blog a success! Contact the
Blog Team with a short (2-3 sentences) proposal on
the Guest Post Submissions page.

I didn't attend my first SPNHC conference until San FrancisMarch 2020 * 5

https://www.nybg.org/plant-research-and-conservation/tour/herbarium/ https://www.nybg.org/plant-research-and-conservation/tour/herbarium/ https://www.idigbio.org/content/digital-data-2020-harnessing-data-revolution-and-amplifying-collections-biodiversity https://www.idigbio.org/content/digital-data-2020-harnessing-data-revolution-and-amplifying-collections-biodiversity https://www.idigbio.org/content/biodiversity-summit-2020 https://www.idigbio.org/content/biodiversity-summit-2020 https://www.gbif.org/news/6TvOkvpPlxRm5vHxljYNN5/virtual-workshop-planned-on-advancing-the-catalogue-of-the-worlds-natural-history-collections https://www.gbif.org/news/6TvOkvpPlxRm5vHxljYNN5/virtual-workshop-planned-on-advancing-the-catalogue-of-the-worlds-natural-history-collections https://crackingthecollections.wordpress.com/guest-post-submissions/ http://crackingthecollections.wordpress.com/blog-series/ http://crackingthecollections.wordpress.com/guest-post-submissions/

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2020

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