SciColl presentations at SPNHC and GGBN

We were pleased to attend the SPNHC and GGBN meetings last week in Berlin. We look forward to continuing the conversations with our many colleagues and other collections champions!

If you weren’t able to attend SPNHC, those sessions were recorded. Find them all on iDigBio’s site. David presented in the Collections for the Future session on Thursday afternoon and Eileen presented in the second DemoCamp session on Friday morning.

Our GGBN talks weren’t recorded, but we’ve uploaded the slides for David’s Thematic, Demand-driven Sampling: Economics of Three Strategies, his presentation for GGBN, and Scientific Collections, Food Security and Emerging Infectious Diseases, which he presented at SPNHC.  Eileen’s A Global Registry of Scientific Collections: Striking a Balance Between Disciplinary Detail and Interdisciplinary Discoverability presentation are also uploaded. They can also be found in GGBN’s document library. (If you would like an account, send a request to: library@ggbn.org).

SPNHC/GGBN 2016, in Berlin, Germany

SciColl is excited to be attending the 2016 meetings of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) and the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN). We’re in Berlin, Germany for the week attending sessions and visiting one of our partner organizations, the Museum für Naturkunde.

• David Schindel, SciColl’s Executive Board Chair, will present a keynote address at GGBN, Thematic, Demand-driven Sampling of the Tree of Life: Barcode of Wildlife Project, on Wednesday at 9:00.

• Eileen Graham, SciColl’s Program Manager, will moderate a GGBN Plenary session, We Can’t Save Them All: Assessing ex situ Conservation Across Time, Technology and the Uncertainty of the Future, on Thursday starting at 13:30.

• David will present Scientific Collections and Food Security: Their Role in Predicting and Protecting Our Future Food Supply at SPNHC on Thursday at 16:40.

• Eileen will give a live demonstration of GRSciColl in the SPNHC DemoCamp session on Friday at 10:20.

• Eileen will present A Global Registry of Scientific Collections: Striking a Balance Between Disciplinary Detail and Interdisciplinary Discoverability at GGBN on Friday at 11:45.

We look forward to seeing many of our colleagues in Berlin and sharing the highlights on Twitter and back here on the blog.

Bis bald!

GRSciColl: Connecting to Collections

SciColl is currently hosting a workshop on the Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl). This online database holds information on institutions and their wide array of  scientific collections, from mammals to meteors, and everything in between. We have gathered experts on collections and databases to discuss how to improve the registry for the needs of the community.

We are part of a larger conversation on the accessibility and relevance of long-forgotten specimens hidden in museums or in the corners of laboratories. Databases and networks in the field of anthropology are different from the biomedical sciences; the community of agricultural scientists is different from that of earth scientists. In one room, we hope to cross boundaries on how researchers and curators connect to collections, as well as the wider world.

Here are a few recent contributions to this conversation in the media:

• Natural history collections represent our planet’s biodiversity today, as well as from a century ago. Some new species will only ever be found in the halls of these institutions as they are lost to nature: “Natural History Museums Are Teeming With Undiscovered Species,” The Atlantic (08 February 2016) 

• Museums are often at the front of communicating science. Recent studies - from asteroid research to the water crisis in Michigan - show that this conversation should go both ways: “Scientists Should Talk To The Public, But Also Listen,” Scientific American (05 February 2016) 

• Zoos and natural history museums are working together to address dangerous infectious sweeping through U.S. salamanders, tapping the efforts of citizen scientists and government agencies alike: “A Ban on Salamanders Is Just Part Of The Fight Against This Deadly Fungus,” Smithsonian Magazine (13 February 2016)

Our 2015 Annual Report!

During the second year of SciColl activities, we engaged the community in new and exciting ways. We launched the Global Registry of Scientific Collections and participated on five social media platforms, which helped spread the word about our Emerging Infectious Diseases Workshop report and other collections research. See our 2015 Annual Report for the full highlights!

Curious about what we are doing in 2016? Sign up for blog updates, follow us on Twitter, or contact us directly to get involved.

GRBio Version 2.0 Workshop

Yesterday was the first session of a two-day workshop on the Global Registry of Biorepositories (GRBio). This registry is a comprehensive online database which contains information about biological collections and the institutions which hold them. Such institutions include natural history museums, herbaria, gene banks, culture collections, and more.

Our workshop will address issues with the use and structure of GRBio and will inform future updates for this website. Stay tuned for workshop discussions and finds!

Our Inaugural Year Annual Report!

2014 was a successful first year for SciColl: we held our first international workshop, expanded our digital presence and are continuing to work on our registry of collections, GRSciColl.

See our Inaugural Year Annual Report for full highlights.

We look forward to a great 2015!