Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections October 2021 - 6

Society Reports
Archives Committee
Not Reporting.
Carol Kelloff, Chair
Best Practices Committee
The Best Practices Committee met
virtually at the SPNHC Annual Meeting
on May 19, 2021. A brief presentation
summarized committee goals, projects,
and progress for the 2020-2021 year.
Members and interested attendees introduced
themselves and participated in a
group brainstorm on focal areas for upcoming
committee work for the 20212022
cycle. A total of 27 people were
in attendance, including several new
SPNHC members. A recording of this
meeting can be viewed on the SPNHC
youtube channel at https://youtu.be/
uHofZ19P-B4.
Following this meeting, committee
members completed a survey outlining their fields of interest
and anticipated areas of contribution for the coming year.
Thus far, 18 members responded, with the majority indicating
a commitment to generating SPNHC wiki content and
managing Zotero Library citations, the two major information
platforms implemented and maintained by the Best Practices
Committee. Several members are working collaboratively on
discipline-specific material, including Entomology and Paleontology
subgroups. Additionally, chairs are seeking volunteers
willing to harvest popular NHCOLL-L listserv threads
and format them for the SPNHC wiki in order to provide
a stable web resource that can be referenced for recurring
listserv topics.
Respectively submitted,
Emily Braker and Genevieve Tocci, Co-chairs
Biodiversity Crisis Response
Committee activities have been characterized by an expansion
of its membership and the subsequent transition to a
diversification of interests, parallel activities and re-alignment
of its working structure. Core to this was the election of Jutta
Buschbom as co-chair of the committee. Congratulations,
Jutta! An introduction to the committee and our objectives
can be found on our wiki (https://spnhc.biowikifarm.net/wiki/
Biodiversity_Crisis_Response_Committee) as well as in a
6 * SPNHC Connection
recently-published article in the GfBS
Newsletter (39:6-9) of the German Society
for Biological Systematics
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qk0_
B2Vu615LqTXLC1VD-5LW4Lp5gHAH/view?usp=sharing).
The committee
meets twice a month.
As members of the committee, we are
engaged in diverse activities, either individually
or in groups, both within and
outside of the committee. Concrete, locally
focused conservation efforts bringing
together collections, climate change
research and biodiversity protection are
of key importance to many committee
members. In this key area, members are
committed to generating and safeguarding collections-based
data, building the social and professional networks required
to do so, investigating urgent questions of biodiversity protection,
and providing much needed results for fact-based
local and regional conservation decisions. A smaller group
of members focus on networking across continental regions,
contributing to science policy transfers and following conservation-relevant
policy making at the global level. Various
members are actively engaged on behalf of SPNHC in CBD
and Nagoya Protocol discussions, including discussion of
digital sequence information (DSI). There is also participation
in the development of the digital and extended specimen
concept and digitization efforts (https://discourse.gbif.org/t/
digital-extended-specimens-phase-2/2651), with the shared
aim of an integrated, global and extensible data infrastructure
that will amplify data-intense research and applications for
the protection of biodiversity while providing security for
sensitive data.
At the annual conference held in conjunction with AIC, we
hosted a well-attended committee meeting that led to an
engaging and thought-provoking discussions about small
scale education and outreach opportunities, e.g., biodiversity
conservation pub nights, the relevance and importance of
GRSciColl in expanding conservation efforts in all corners of
the globe, and increased involvement with GBIF. Thanks to
those of you that attended and contributed to the discussion.
The committee is actively discussing a manuscript that brings
together the diversity of the conservation commitments found
within the committee, while highlighting a concrete agenda
for one of the core areas. These ongoing discussions have
been significant for clarifying and raising awareness for the
shared and divergent perspectives within the committee and
their integration into one voice.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qk0_B2Vu615LqTXLC1VD-5LW4Lp5gHAH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qk0_B2Vu615LqTXLC1VD-5LW4Lp5gHAH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qk0_B2Vu615LqTXLC1VD-5LW4Lp5gHAH/view?usp=sharing https://www.youtu.be/uHofZ19P-B4 https://www.youtu.be/uHofZ19P-B4 https://www.cbd.int/ https://www.cbd.int/abs/about/#:~:text=to%20assist%20implementation-,What%20is%20the%20Nagoya%20Protocol%20and%20what%20is%20its%20objective,the%20Convention%20on%20Biological%20Diversity https://discourse.gbif.org/t/digital-extended-specimens-phase-2/2651 https://discourse.gbif.org/t/digital-extended-specimens-phase-2/2651 https://spnhc.biowikifarm.net/wiki/Biodiversity_Crisis_Response_Committee https://spnhc.biowikifarm.net/wiki/Biodiversity_Crisis_Response_Committee

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections October 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections October 2021