SPNHC Connection – March 2025

The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) is a multidisciplinary organization composed of individuals who are interested in the development and preservation of natural history collections.

Table of Contents

President Report

The past year has been a very busy one for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. Major headlines include a joint meeting with TDWG in Okinawa, completion of the new Strategic Plan for the society, updating the conference guidelines, forming new committees, receiving a grant from the California Institute for Biodiversity, and the election of new members of the SPNHC council. On behalf of the society, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to all those who made the 2024 conference in Okinawa a success. It took many hours of Zoom meetings, lots of planning, and a lot of navigation of cultural and language differences (as well as far too many time zones) to make it happen. And it was, by all accounts, a success. This was the first time the society met in Asia and the second time we met with TDWG. The conference offered an engaging program as well as some excellent (and in some cases uniquely Okinawan) social events and field trips.  Where else could anyone have danced to great music, on a belly full of soba and sushi, at the beach during a tropical rainstorm accompanied by flying foxes and hermit crabs? Also, at the Annual Business Meeting in Okinawa, Paul Myer officially rotated out of the past president position, and Julian Carter shifted from president to past president. Yours truly shifted from president-elect to president and Suzanne Ryder agreed to serve as interim president-elect.

The next conference will be May 27-31, 2025, in Lawrence, Kansas. The time since the previous conference is much shorter than normal, yet, Andy Bentley and the team have worked hard and fast to come up with a great conference plan. The list of symposia looks amazing! The field trips look great! We hope to see you all there.

In June, members of the Long-Range Planning Committee and representatives of various committees met at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago to work on the Society’s Strategic Plan. The effort was shepherded by Suzanne Ryder and ultimately resulted in a more streamlined plan that speaks more clearly to where SPNHC is now and where SPNHC wants to be in the near future. Each committee chair has been asked to find a way for their committee to contribute to the goals outlined in the plan. Reaching the goals of any plan can only be done through the efforts of the group. I’m optimistic about where SPNHC will go over the coming year as a result of this collaborative effort.

Inspired by work done on the updated Strategic Plan, Cindy Opitz and I rewrote the guidelines for conference hosting. Cindy, in particular, spent hours rearranging entire sections of the document so that the flow was more logical and in line with how conferences are planned now. This new version was recently accepted by council and is now heading to the next TWO groups who have offered to host. More on that in future communications!

This year we officially ended one sessional committee, converted one sessional committee into a standing committee, and created a whole new sessional committee.  The Collection Theft and Security Monitoring of Collections Committee was sessional and expired as originally intended. US Federal Collections became a standing committee and is co-chaired by Janaki Krishna, Carrie A. Eaton, and Greg Liggett. Finally, with the receipt of a grant from the California Institute of Biodiversity, it became necessary to create a new sessional committee to manage that program.  In a nutshell, that program received funding so that SPNHC can give out small awards to help with collections of Californian biodiversity material (anywhere) or any biodiversity collection in California. Irene Finkelde is the chair of this new sessional committee.

In other committee news, the Finance Committee has been given new life. Barbara Thiers leads that committee which meets regularly via Zoom to discuss issues such as liability insurance, investments, funding for conferences, etc. Not necessarily the kinds of topics I can wrap my head around, but it is important, and the team working on it is the right group of people for the job.

The council and associated committees continue to meet quarterly via Zoom to help improve communications and support moving society business forward throughout the year. There are quarterly meetings of committee chairs to help foster cross-talk between the committees, especially as they may help reach goals outlined in the Strategic Plan. Also, many committees meet frequently throughout the year to keep up the momentum. In addition, the society continues to use its Slack account as an additional means to communicate more widely, and many of the channels on that account are open to all members to join and use. Zoom, Slack, and our YouTube channel accounts are there to support the work of the society. Please let us know if you’d like to use them to host a relevant event.

This year’s election results are in and we welcome some new members to council.  Suzanne Ryder was officially elected president-elect (no longer interim). Two new Members-at-Large were elected: Mariana DiGiacomo and Jessica Utrup. We are grateful to all who participated in the election and strongly encourage nominations for future positions. Participating in the society as an elected official is a high honor. I wish to personally thank our two outgoing Members-at-Large, Irene Finkelde and Jennifer Trimble, for their service to the society.

I’ll close by saying that this has been an exciting year. The things we’ve accomplished in one year are somewhat mind-blowing. It reminds me of what one of my college professors told me about professional organizations.  He said that the operative word in the name of any group is usually something that equates to “community.” In our case, that’s “society.” So, I thank each of you for being part of my society and look forward to good things.

Greg Watkins-Colwell, SPNHC President

40th ANNUAL MEETING 2025

SPNHC 2025
Sustainable Futures: Challenges and Opportunities for Modern Collections
Hosted by the Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas
Date: May 27-31, 2025
Website: https://spnhc2025.ku.edu/
Contact: spnhc2025@ku.edu

The Biodiversity Institute and the University of Kansas invite you to join us for the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) May 27-31, 2025, in Lawrence, Kansas, USA.  The meeting will be held on the campus of the University of Kansas in the Kansas Memorial Union. Plenary and concurrent sessions/symposia, along with committee meetings, workshops, Council and Annual Business meetings, will comprise the bulk of the conference program. At the same time, ample opportunities to socialize will be provided at the icebreaker, banquet, and trivia night events. Tours of the Biodiversity Institute collections will facilitate discussion of best practices and standards employed in various disciplines while numerous field trip options are also being explored.  Virtual attendance will be made possible through Zoom. We are grateful to the many sponsors whose support makes this conference possible.

Program

The program for SPNHC 2025 begins with field trips on Tuesday, May 27, plenary and concurrent sessions May 28-30, and workshops on Saturday, May 31.  On the social program, an evening ice-breaker reception will be held on May 27, Trivia Night hosted by Delta Designs/Bruynzeel in Topeka on May 28, and the banquet on May 29.  Collection tours will be hosted by Biodiversity Institute collection managers on the afternoon of May 30.  There will be an opportunity for attendees to interact with our sponsors and vendors at the Vendor Fair which will run the length of the meeting.  Numerous interesting workshops are planned for the last day.  A summary agenda can be found on the agenda page.

Field trips

We have several fun-filled field trips planned in and around Lawrence for the first day of the meeting.  Attendees can join old friends or make new ones while visiting the Konza Prairie, paddle the Kansas River with Friends of the Kaw, enjoy the Kansas City Zoo and Aquarium with our ZooMu colleagues, walk the KU Field Station while learning about their research and educational initiatives, travel through the SubTropolis underground cave storage in Kansas City, or go on a Brewery Tour, tasting some of our local craft brews and learning more about the unique brewing techniques and ingredients used in their fine beers.  More information can be found on the field trip page.

Workshops

Workshops will be held on the last day of the conference on Saturday, May 31.  Numerous half-day and full-day workshops have been proposed covering an array of topics.  Visit the workshops page to see more and sign up early to reserve your spot.

Accommodations

We have secured reduced-rate rooms at five hotels close to the conference venue as well as KU apartment-style accommodations on campus for those wanting a more cost-effective option.  See the accommodations page for more information and to reserve your room.

STEAMed SPNHC

Something new at SPNHC 2025 — we plan to highlight the intersection of Art and Science. The STEAMed SPNHC team is proposing a suite of events including a Silent Art Auction, an Artist’s Corner, and an Unconference session around this topic. With these activities, we see the potential to extend the conference’s reach and impact beyond its traditional audience, strengthening ties, visibility, relevance, and inclusion with the local art community and across our own. See the STEAMed SPNHC page for more details.

BioBlitz

SPNHC 2025 will continue the tradition of having a BioBlitz associated with the meeting in conjunction with iNaturalist. The BioBlitz will cover all taxa and will run from May 20 to June 8. If you are attending the meeting in person, log your observations while out and about during the conference, field trips, or other events in the Local BioBlitz. Not attending in person?  We have you covered. Join the Worldwide BioBlitz and log your observations from wherever you are located.

Registration is now open. Early bird registration is available until March 31. Regular registration ends April 30.

Andrew Bentley
SPNHC 2025 Organizing Committee

ANNOUNCEMENTS

California Collection Project Grants

Through the kind generosity of the California Institute for Biodiversity and the State of
California, the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) has
approximately US$300K to award in support of saving at-risk collections relating to the
geographical area of California. In this time of rapid environmental change and declining wild
biodiversity, it is essential that collections be secured and maintained for the future.
Funding is available to rescue specimens and samples, process backlogs and accession
specimens, repair collections infrastructure, and otherwise secure biodiversity specimens
and associated materials/data. For details, go to https://spnhc.org/california-collection-project-grants/

Irene Finkelde, chair California Collection Project Grants Sessional Committee

Notice of 2025 Annual Business Meeting 

The 40th Annual Business Meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections will be held on May 30, 2025.
Please visit: https://spnhc2025.ku.edu/

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Archives

The Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) houses the archives of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC). SIA currently holds 16 deposits of SPNHC material totaling 23.5 cubic feet. Examples of this material include Collection Forum, SPNHC newsletters, documentation of annual meetings, financial files, election ballots, member-at-large files, various committee files, videos, CDs, and photographs.

The members of the Archives Committee act as liaisons between SIA and SPNHC. In preparation for the transfer to SIA, the documentation and material related to the activity of the society are organized in archival boxes, and a “finding aid” is typed for each box. The material is arranged in folders with year, type of documentation, and a summary of the folder’s content. When known, files received from individuals are noted. Although the society has moved to electronic publications, these are printed and cataloged for deposit. The finding aid along with the boxes are transferred to SIA, where an accession number is assigned to the deposit and the finding aid is uploaded to the SIA website.  

Material, documentation, images, and publications continue to be collected by the Archives Committee.  Where possible, any material sent to the participants such as the book of abstracts, committee reports, schedules, etc. were printed. To find other material deposited at SIA go to https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/search?query=SPNHC. 

We are now gathering material, emails, and other documents pertaining to the 2024 Okinawa, Japan, meeting and the 2025 meeting that will be held in Lawrence, Kansas, this year. All material gathered will be added to the next submission to SI Archives.

Many of the archive holdings are located off-site. If copies of material are needed or if you need to consult an accession, please contact the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu to retrieve records.

Respectfully submitted,
Carol Kelloff, chair
Meghann Toner
Lisa Palmer

Best Practices

Nothing to report.

Biodiversity Crisis Response

Many members of the BCRC took part in the SPNHC-TDWG 2024 conference in Okinawa during the first week of September 2024. This was a great opportunity for many to meet in person for the first time and for others to get reacquainted. The two symposium sessions suggested by the committee were well attended and proceeded as follows:

The first session was IUCN Red List Assessments: How can and do museums contribute? which ran on the afternoon of 4th September. The first talk was titled Let’s Narrow the Gap of IUCN Conservation Status of Ecuadorian Biodiversity by Incorporating Local Research Expertise presented by Alina followed by Diego Tirira presenting on The Red Book of the Mammals of Ecuador. This second talk was a late replacement for one meant to have been given by Elizabeth Downey who could not attend the conference. The final talk in this session was Using the IUCN Red List to Update the Hunterian Zoology Museum by Mike Rutherford. After one question, Mike used the remaining time to talk about the self-led IUCN Red List Assessor Training course that was available online through conservationtraining.org and encouraged those interested in contributing to Red List assessments to take the course.

The second session was one of the final events on the afternoon of 5th September, and was titled Bioblitzes and Museums: Natural Partners. The first talk was The UWI Zoology Museum and Bioblitzing in Trinidad & Tobago – Mutual Benefits presented in person by Mike Rutherford, followed by two pre-recorded talks. The first was by Yurika Saito on Empowering Biodiversity Education: Practicing Digital Utilization through BioBlitz in a Japanese Curator Course and next was Gavin Broad with Bioblitzes and Darwin Tree of Life: teaming up to collect invertebrates for whole genome sequencing and DNA barcoding. Next were two in-person talks with Viktor Hartung talking about Citizen Science online biodiversity platform as an integrating tool for a natural history museum and then Lauren Vonnahme on Strengthening communities through nature: The role of bioblitzes in museum-community partnerships. The final talk was pre-recorded by Lila Higgins and was titled From Small & Local to Massive & Global: Nine Years of the City Nature Challenge BioBlitz. The talks were well received and showed the many ways in which bioblitzes have been used.

As well as the symposium on bioblitzes, members of the BCRC joined with TDWC member Vijay Barve to set up and participate in a conference bioblitz. Using iNaturalist, two projects were set up. The first was  https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/spnhc-tdwg-2024-bioblitz-okinawa to record observations from around Okinawa from 28 August to 11 September and the second was https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/spnhc-tdwg-2024-bioblitz-worldwide for the rest of the world for the same dates so that those attending the conference virtually could also contribute. During the Annual Business Meeting on the last day of the conference, Mike gave a short presentation with a summary of the results and thanked all who contributed. More records came in over the next few months as people had time to process and the final results for the Okinawa project were 5,713 observations of 1,190 species by 73 observers. Most observations were by Wouter Kock with 618, and the most species seen were by Nicole Kearney with 289. For the worldwide project, there were 467 observations of 249 species by 22 observers.

Members of the BCRC had several informal discussions throughout the conference and both co-chairs took part in the council meeting and the Annual Business Meeting.

Four meetings were held online between the conference and the submission of this report. For more details see Living Meeting Notes. The following topics were discussed:

• Reducing the number of meetings to once every two months rather than every month
• Encouraging members of the committee to check and update the GRSciColl entries for their institutions and help others to do so as well
• How we can contribute to the SPNHC Long-Range Plan
• Megan King attended one meeting representing the Broadcasting Committee and encouraging more student participation in committees
• Developing plans for an IUCN workshop for SPNHC members to learn how to contribute to Red Lists
• Report back on the COP16 Biodiversity meeting by Jutta Buschbom
• Updates and contributions to the SPNHC Wiki pages once they become editable again
• How to contribute to the 2025 conference through symposium, activities, bioblitzes, etc.

This final session resulted in a symposium suggestion being submitted on 10 January 2025, titled “Standing Together for Biodiversity.” This was led by Libby Ellwood and aims to “highlight the people and organizations who have worked to bring collections and collections data to the table of various formal and informal conservation discussions and actions.”

With thanks to Libby Ellwood and Jutta Buschbom for their continued support of the BCRC.

Respectfully submitted,
Alina Freire-Fierro and Mike G. Rutherford, co-chairs
Jutta Buschbom and Libby Ellwood

Bylaws
Nothing to report.

Conference

See President Report.

Conservation

Nothing to report.

Education

Nothing to report.

Elections

This year, the elections were conducted successfully online using the platform ElectionBuddy.com. The call for nominations was sent to members via email, for the positions of president-elect and two Members-at-Large. There were four candidates for the three positions.

The election began on January 23, 2025, and closed on February 11, 2025. All voting members (as of January 2025) were emailed using the online platform. At the close of the election, the total number of returned ballots was 204 (41%) out of 511 eligible members.

The bar chart below shows the voting trends over the past five years.

The positions filled and successful candidates are:
President-Elect:
Suzanne Ryder  197 votes – 100%

Members-at-Large:
Mariana Di Giacomo      160 votes – 41.45%
Jessica Utrup     120 votes – 31.09%

These results have been shared with the membership via NHCOLL-L and the SPNHC Connection newsletter.

Respectfully submitted,
Jean-Marc Gagnon and Bethany Palumbo, co-chairs

Finance

The newly-reconstituted SPNHC Finance Committee has held two quarterly meetings (October 2024, January 2025). Our charge is to 1) review the annual budget prepared by the treasurer and make recommendations as needed; 2) review the financial policies of SPNHC and make recommendations to the council as needed; 3) recommend investment strategies for council approval, and 4) oversee the responsible investment of SPNHC funds as directed by the council. Our work so far has focused on gaining an understanding of the elements of the SPNHC operating budget, which has been straightforward, and the overall assets and liabilities of the society, which we are still working on. We are drafting policies that articulate SPNHC policies related to conflict of interest, discrimination, gift acceptance, and reimbursement. This work is intended to increase the transparency of the society’s financial management, and such documents are a necessary part of our planned application of a Directors and Officers insurance policy to protect the society and our executive and council.

Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Thiers, chair

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access

The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Committee continues to prioritize diversity goals. Unlike previous years, we did not hold a meeting at the SPNHC-TWDG conference this year. However, we did have one meeting this fall to discuss our goals for the future. We want to inform everyone in SPNHC that Vanessa and Meghann will be stepping down after serving on the committee since 2021. The committee’s leadership will change moving forward. We do not know who will replace us as co-chairs at this time, but if you are interested, please reach out to Vanessa, Meghann, or any executive council member.

Respectfully submitted,
Vanessa Delnavaz and Meghann Toner, co-chairs

Legislation and Regulations

In recent years, permit applications have been denied by US Fish & Wildlife for specific marine mammals (e.g., walruses, manatees, sea otters, polar bears) because the agency believes that adding specimens to a natural history research collection does not constitute “bona fide research.” The Legislation and Regulations Committee is working with the American Society of Mammalogists, Society for Marine Mammalogy, and ZooMu Network to help demonstrate that natural history collections are bona fide research institutions that promote current and future research, and when specimens are discarded, it results in no future research, education, or conservation opportunities. We have recently reached out to the Marine Mammal Commission to determine a strategy for engaging with USFWS to come to a common understanding, but we have not yet received a response.

Respectfully submitted,
Breda Zimkus and Dirk Neumann, co-chairs

Long Range Planning

The focus of the committee this year has been to complete and launch the new SPNHC Strategic Plan. The committee has worked hard to shape the strategy and incorporate all the helpful comments and suggestions from the other SPNHC committees and wider membership. The Strategic Plan will be available on the SPNHC website soon. The LRP Committee would like to thank all those who contributed to this project.

https://spnhc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025_Strategic_Plan.pdf

The objectives for the coming year are to:

• Produce a report for council after reviewing current partnerships SPNHC has in place and their mandate, role, and relationships to make sure they are up to date and continue to be beneficial to both parties.
• Work with the standing committees to implement the goals and objectives of the new strategy.

Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne Ryder and Greg Watkins-Colwell, co-chairs

Membership

The support of its members and the funds raised by membership fees allow this society to continue in its wonderful work to support and advocate for natural history collections and the people who work with them.

Being a member of this international organization gives you access to a lively, active interdisciplinary community of professionals dedicated to the care of natural history collections. You are part of a community made up of museum specialists such as curators, conservators, research scientists, data managers, educators, archivists, and many other disciplines across natural sciences from around the world.

Annual membership expired on December 31 so if you haven’t already, it’s time to renew for 2025!

In 2024 our membership numbers reached 866 from 36 countries. Currently, we have 479 members but as this is the period for renewal, we expect that figure to rise again as members renew in the coming months.  

To ensure the ongoing support to the membership and continue the multiple initiatives and activities the society is actively pursuing, this year council has decided to increase membership fees for the first time in over 10 years. This means that all new members from January 1 will pay the new rates of $55 for Regular Online Only Membership and $375 for Corporate/Commercial Online Only Membership.

An auto-renew option has also been introduced for the following membership types:

• Collection Forum Print Only
• Regular Online Only Member
• Regular Print and Online Membership
• Student Online Only Member
• Student Print and Online Member

If you choose the auto-renew option, your fees will be automatically taken on January 1, removing the hassle of remembering to renew.

Promotion

We continue to promote SPNHC at conferences by advertising in conference literature and exhibiting the Membership Booths. If you have a suggestion for exhibiting the in-person or virtual Membership Booth at upcoming conferences, please contact Robyn Crowther (membership@spnhc.org). You may be eligible for full complimentary conference registration. The committee is happy to hear from anyone with connections at future SPNHC annual meeting locations who can help us widen the membership reach of the society.

Respectfully submitted,
Robyn Crowther, chair

Networking and Career Development

The Networking and Career Development Committee (NCDC) has recently had a change in co-chairs as we said goodbye to Kevin Krajcir and Jessie Nakano and welcomed Megan King, Hannah Bendull, and Meg Phillips in the new year.

The NCDC oversees various aspects of promoting networking, mentoring, and career development through SPNHC programming and conferences. You can read more about NCDC on the SPNHC website. We invite you to become a member no matter your level of experience; help us shape the future of our committee!

We also encourage you to attend our bi-monthly meetings. They are held virtually over Zoom on Wednesdays at 3 PM EST/ 12 PM PST. For the meeting link, please reach out to us through our new committee email address, spnhc.ncdc@gmail.com.

Respectfully submitted,
Hannah Bendull, Megan King, Meg Phillips, co-chairs

Publications

UPCOMING SPECIAL PROJECTS

In addition to our standard publication venues described below, the Publications Committee is currently investigating the possibility of launching two special themed issues of Collection Forum. The first would be an additional collection of papers concerning the care and handling of fluid-preserved specimens as a follow-up to Volume 34, which included a series of articles based on presentations given at a conference concerning the preservation of natural history wet collections. The second would be a selection of papers presented at the 2025 SPNHC gathering centering on the theme “Sustainable Futures: Challenges and Opportunities for Modern Collections.” More information about these projects will be made available at the next annual meeting of the society in Lawrence, Kansas.

An updated, online version of the 2010 volume Health and Safety for Museum Professionals, originally published jointly with the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, is also currently in development as a non-SPNHC project. For further information about this effort, please contact Lisa Goldberg at lgoldberg@lgpreservation.com.

COLLECTION FORUM

Volume 36 of Collection Forum (2022) remains the latest issue available online at https://meridian.allenpress.com/collection-forum. One article has been published in this volume to date with three currently in the review process. Volume 36 will close following the publication of these three additional articles.

Articles in the most recent issue of Collection Forum are generally available online only to current members, becoming openly available to all once superseded by a subsequent issue. In cases where not enough articles have been accepted for publication within a given year and a volume thus spans two years before sufficient content has been accumulated, individual articles within the multi-year volume will convert to open access status after one year has passed from the date of initial publication online.

Volume 37 is now in the initial stages of development with three new submissions likely to be received over the next few months. Collection Forum accepts full-length manuscripts as well as short communications, technical notes, detailed book reviews, and submissions that traditionally would have gone to the Leaflets series. Peer evaluation and editorial review of most content are coordinated through the journal’s team of associate editors; decisions concerning the most appropriate format for publication for certain submissions will be handled in collaboration with the leaflet, book review, and newsletter managers.

Members who present at the SPNHC annual meeting are strongly encouraged to submit manuscripts for consideration, particularly those who receive travel awards and support from the society. For inquiries about new submissions, please email the editors at editor@spnhc.org.

Scott Rufolo serves as managing editor of Collection Forum. Mariel Campbell, Mariana di Giacomo, Shelley James, and Genevieve Tocci volunteer their time as assistant editors.

For questions about online access to Collection Forum at the journal website at https://meridian.allenpress.com/collection-forum, please contact the editor. Address changes for print copies should be sent to membership@spnhc.org. Please confirm and update membership at https://spnhc.wildapricot.org/join-us or contact the SPNHC Treasurer at treasurer@spnhc.org.

SPNHC LEAFLETS

The SPNHC Leaflets are a series of single-topic, short papers on various technical aspects of collections care, management, preservation and conservation. Produced in the past as stand-alone references, a typical SPNHC Leaflets contribution describes and suggests practical means for solving a technical problem or issue. These “how-to” guides are designed to serve as training and education tools for natural history museum collection professionals and students in museum studies programs and will now be published as contributions to Collection Forum. If you are interested in publishing a Leaflets piece on natural history collections, please contact Breda Zimkus at bzimkus@oeb.harvard.edu or the managing editor of Collection Forum at editor@spnhc.org.

BOOK REVIEWS

In-depth book reviews with extensive content critique will be considered for publication in Collection Forum. Shorter book reviews profiling recent publications that would be of interest to members may be submitted for publication in SPNHC Connection. For more information concerning these two book review formats, to suggest a title for review, or to submit a review, please contact Lisa Goldberg at lgoldberg@lgpreservation.com or the managing editor at editor@spnhc.org.

SPNHC CONNECTION

SPNHC Connection Editor Liath Appleton and Assistant Editor Lori Schlenker continue their hard work to publish the society newsletter. Liath also serves as the SPNHC webmaster. For any newsletter submissions or updates to the society webpage, please email Liath at newsletter@spnhc.org. To access SPNHC Connection, please go to the Publications tab at  www.spnhc.org. The most recent issues require member login.

SPNHC BOOKS

Our most-recent book—Best Practices for the Preservation of Wet Collections by Dirk Neumann, Julian Carter, John E. Simmons, and Oliver Crimmen—was released in the fall of 2022.  It is available for purchase through https://www.universityproducts.com/ or through https://archetype.co.uk/ .  Other SPNHC book titles continue to be available through University Products at https://www.universityproducts.com/. The 2019 volume Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage, edited by Lisa Elkin and Christopher A. Norris, is being sold through University Products and through the AIC website at https://store.culturalheritage.org, where AIC members will receive a 15% discount off the $95 purchase price. An eBook of this title is in progress. Please contact editor@spnhc.org for more information or to suggest ideas for future book titles.

JOURNAL AND NEWSLETTER ACCESS

A reminder that past issues of the newsletter and the journal are available online at www.spnhc.org. More recent issues of Collection Forum (those published since 2014) are provided as fully interactive online volumes accessed through https://collectionforum.org/, which requires a separate member login (see above for information on Meridian site access). Older issues are available at the same link but have been uploaded as PDF documents. If you or your institution require assistance with accessing the newsletter or the journal, please contact editor@spnhc.org.

SPNHC PUBLICATION ARCHIVES

Carol Kelloff, Archives chair, maintains a reference library of all current and former SPNHC publications at the Smithsonian. If you have older print copies of SPNHC books or journal issues that are currently missing from the spnhc.org portal, and you would be willing to donate and/or provide scanned copies of these publications, please contact Carol at kelloffc@si.edu or editor@spnhc.org.

For any questions about the Publications Committee or to volunteer, please use one of the following contact emails:

Collection Forum (Scott Rufolo, Managing Editor): editor@spnhc.org
SPNHC Connection (Liath Appleton, Editor): newsletter@spnhc.org
SPNHC Leaflets (Breda Zimkus, Editor): bzimkus@oeb.harvard.edu
Book Reviews (Lisa Goldberg, Associate Editor): lgoldberg@lgpreservation.com

There are positions open for additional volunteers to serve as associate editors for Collection Forum.

Respectfully submitted,
Scott Rufolo, chair

Recognition and Grants

Nothing to report.

US Federal Collections

Since the 2024 Annual Meeting in Okinawa, the US Federal Collections Committee has been continuing its work in connecting federal agencies with their non-federal organizational partners and increasing both the accessibility to and ease of management of federal collections by non-federal repositories. The committee sent out polls to the Paleo Data Working Group (PDWG) and the NHCOLL listserv to see how collections managers were denoting federal property and ownership in their collections management systems with the aim of moving towards a standard vocabulary. We also received information from our USFS and DOI partners on the terms used in their respective CMS’s. This is an ongoing effort and one on which we plan to collaborate with PDWG in the future.

We continue to host bi-monthly meetings and address topics relevant to the management of federal collections. Last year this included a lengthy and helpful discussion on the new NAGPRA implementation laws, when it applies, and a discussion of the webinar hosted by NatSCA, AIBS, and our own Legs and Regs committee.

We encourage anyone interested in the management of US federal collections to join our committee and help foster these productive discussions!

Respectfully submitted,
Carrie A. Eaton, Janaki Krishna and Greg Liggett, co-chairs

Web and Social Media

The Web and Social Media Committee manages many aspects of the SPNHC online presence. You can find a complete list of who we are and what we do at https://spnhc.org/what-spnhc-does/governance/committees-and-representatives/#website. We are currently looking for someone to manage our online events calendar. If you are familiar with WordPress and would like to help out, contact us at webmaster@spnhc.org. Interested in helping out with social media, have a job you want listed on our jobs board, or announcements you want sent out to our subscribers? Let us know!

Respectfully submitted,
Liath Appleton, chair

REPRESENTATIVE REPORTS

American Society of Mammalogists

Beginning in 1972, the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) has had a standing committee called the Systematic Collections Committee (SCC), originally formed at the request of the National Science Foundation. The society has defined this committee’s responsibilities as follows: (1) Advising curators worldwide in matters of collection administration, curation, and accreditation; (2) Maintaining a directory of mammal collections and conducting a survey of existing collections once each decade (most recently published in 2018); and (3) maintaining a list of curatorial standards for mammal collections including tissue collections and managing a collection-accreditation program.

The committee has been very active since the Annual Meeting of the Society in July 2023. This information has not previously been reported to the SPNHC membership, except in the 2024 Annual Meeting documentation. Note that the next ASM Systematic Collections Committee Report is not due until May 2025.

1. As of May 2024, eight collections were at various stages of the accreditation review process:
   a) A site visit was conducted at the University of Colorado Natural History Museum during the Annual ASM Meeting in June 2024.
   b) Denver Museum of Nature & Science has requested a site visit.
   c) Museo Javeriano de Historia Natural-MUJ, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Bogotá made an initial inquiry into accreditation and received self-assessment documents from the chair (15 March 2024).
   d) A site visit to Colección Regional Durango (CRD), Durango, Mexico,
   was completed on 14 April 2024. Distribution of the site-visit report to the full committee was pending at the time of this report.
   e) A site visit to the Utah Museum Natural History, University of Utah (UMNH) was completed on 7 November 2023 by 12 committee members during an NSF-funded RANGES project meeting. Distribution of the site-visit report and full committee discussion was pending at the time of this report.
   f) A site visit to Northern Michigan University was completed on 30 September 2022. Full committee discussion was pending at the time of this report.
   g) University of Oklahoma, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History has provided self-assessment documents. The site visit was pending at the time of this report.
   h) A site visit to the Museum of Natural History, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, occurred during the 2022 ASM meetings. Review of UA institutional support for the collections was pending at the time of this report.
2. A revision of the Basic Curatorial Standards for Systematic Collections (Journal of Mammalogy, 85:180-181, 2004) is in progress. A final document was to be made available to President and Board of Directors review following the SCC meeting at the 2024 annual meeting. The updated Standards document will be submitted to the Journal of Mammalogy for publication.
3. Conversion of the Mammal Collections of the Western Hemisphere: a survey and directory of collections in a digital format hosted on the ASM website has been approved by President Smith. Development is underway by an SCC subcommittee and the Communications Committee.
4. A guideline document for performing accreditations is in development.

To view the documents mentioned here and other collection-related information, see: http://www.mammalogy.org/committees/systematic-collections#tab3.

Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne McLaren, SPNHC representative to ASM

American Society of Plant Taxonomists

The American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT), founded in 1936, is a botanical organization with the mission of promoting research and education in plant taxonomy, systematics, and phylogenetics. The society has over 1,000 members and publishes two journals: Systematic Botany and Systematic Botany Monographs. ASPT also provides funding for student research and travel grants.

The 2024 annual meeting was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as part of the Botany 2024 conference with the theme “Resilience in a Changing World.” The upcoming Botany 2025 meeting, which was originally going to be held in Tucson, Arizona, has been moved to Palm Springs, California, during the same dates (July 26-30, 2025). A last-minute issue with the former venue meant our conference organizers had to pivot and secure a new venue and retool the conference program, in partnership with the five other organizing societies; their ability to pull this off at warp speed is a feat of teamwork and dedication. Conference details and registration will be coming soon at https://2025.botanyconference.org/.

ASPT was also well represented at the XX International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Madrid, Spain. This gathering of botanists from around the world occurs every six years for discussions on plant nomenclature and amendments to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. This IBC featured over 3000 attendees from 95 countries! One of the highlights was the Madrid Declaration, which outlined ten strategic actions to promote plant science and sustainability, emphasizing the importance of stronger connections between plants and people for planetary health and resilience. The next IBC will be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Respectfully submitted,
Harlan Svoboda, SPNHC representative to ASPT

Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists

The 2025 biennial ARCS Conference will take place 18-21 November at Union Station in St, Louis, Missouri. The theme for the conference has not yet been announced but will be soon on the website at www.arcsinfo.org, along with announcements about ARCS in-person meet-up opportunities and other ARCS events.

Given the recent fires in California, extensive hurricane damage in Florida and the Carolinas, and the effects of climate change everywhere, the 2025 ARCS Workshop series will feature a very timely series of five webinars on Collection Emergencies, scheduled for Mondays from 2:00 to 3:00 pm ET from 27 January to 24 March. The series begins with emergency planning and training and proceeds with getting institutional buy-in, risk management, technical response, emergency documentation, emergency salvage, re-entry safety, and damage assessments. The webinars will be presented by museum experts around the country. For details and registration information, see https://www.arcsinfo.org/news-events/event/2426/0/arcs-2025-emergency-webinar-series.

The resources available on the ARCS ”Emergency Help Now!” site continues to grow, with resources linked to the 10 FEMA regions of the US. The list of resources can be found at: https://www.arcsinfo.org/community/resources/emergency-sub-committee-programs.

ARCS members are invited to post questions to the ARCS Forum at https://www.arcsinfo.org/community/forum#type=q-and-a&page=1&post=&search=. Recent questions included deaccessioning of an eagle feather, clarifying language for bequests, and managing institutional archives.

The “News in the Field” site offers an often entertaining selection of museum news, and the “On Contract” site is an excellent place to look for professional assistance from consulting collection specialists and registrars. A listing of current museum jobs and internships is available at https://www.arcsinfo.org/opportunities/career-center.

Respectfully submitted,
John E. Simmons, SPNHC representative to ARCS

Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities

The collaboration between CETAF and SPNHC continued to go strong throughout 2024. Well-established long-term relationships and a steady flow of event-focused joint activities filled the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between both organizations with life.

A highlight of the past year certainly was the joint SPNHC/TDWG conference 2024 in Okinawa, Japan. Colleagues from CETAF member institutions supported the organization of the conference and a large contingent from Europe attended the meeting in person, as well as online. Earlier that summer, Luc Willemse, chair of the CETAF Collections working group had invited me to speak about the current state of developments towards the Digital Extended Specimen (DES) and the work of the International Partners for the DES at one of the monthly meetings of the working group. A topic that is of interest to CETAF and SPNHC members, with the connection between Luc and myself arising from the MoU between both organizations. Throughout the year many smaller and larger interactions occurred between members of SPNHC and colleagues from CETAF institutions.

Two long-standing collaborations to highlight are, first, the engagement of European colleagues as members of SPNHC’s council in a variety of roles, made possible through the support and resources provided to them by their CETAF institutions. Currently, Suzanne Ryder as SPNHC’s president-elect is from the NHM London, UK, and several European council members provide essential services for the operation of the society. The chairs of the two SPNHC committees that I am a member of both include one co-chair employed by a CETAF member institution (Biodiversity Crisis Response: Mike Rutherford; Legislation and Regulations: Dirk Neumann). The power of collaboration between SPNHC as an international society and CETAF as a regional association is probably most visible in the work of the SPNHC and CETAF Leg&Regs working groups. These are closely aligned and thus highly effective and productive by sharing one of their co-chairs in the person of Dirk Neumann.

Looking forward, 2025 started out by the Leg&Regs groups planning to submit a contribution to a public review call opened by the Convention on Biological Diversity. The submissions by SPNHC, CETAF, and a German umbrella organization for biological associations will be developed to complement each other and strengthen the voice of the collections community to the science-policy interface of the convention.

A close collaboration led by Laurence Bénichou (MNHN Paris, FR) as co-chair of the CETAF ePublishing working group and with members from SPNHC, Plazi, and BHL that worked over the past approximately three years is wrapping up. The collaboration produced two joint statements on the citation of taxonomic authors and the non-copyrightability of data in publications, respectively, with an additional manuscript currently in review.

The connection will however not be lost completely and continue in different forms. For example, Laurence Bénichou and Donat Agosti (PLazi, CH) will be organizing the workshop “Unlocking the Treasures of Natural History Collections: Scholarly Publishing in the Digital Age” at this year’s annual SPNHC conference in Kansas, USA. Its focus is on semantic publishing to overcome access barriers and make available biodiversity data embedded in publications. They will continue to interact and engage with the wider, global community on the topic also during LivingData 2025 in the fall.

Looking back over the first three years during which the MoU between SPNHC and CETAF has been in place, one way to distill the close collaboration between both organizations is that CETAF has a significant impact on SPNHC’s activities by supporting their employees’ engagement within the society and, thus, at least indirectly providing resources to the society’s work. On the other hand, engaged SPNHC members bring back to their CETAF institutions and CETAF working groups the perspectives, experiences, and new developments of colleagues and the community from around the world. By opening up and widening, challenging, and especially enriching the European focus, SPNHC members from European CETAF institutions integrate both ways their local home communities and the global, inter- and transdisciplinary collections, biodiversity informatics, and science communities.

Respectfully submitted,
Jutta Buschbom, SPNHC liaison to CETAF

Convention on Biological Diversity

Four years ago, at the beginning of 2021, SPNHC applied for status as an observer organization to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The status was granted and I attended the virtual and hybrid events fully in 2021 and 2022, and as much as possible since then. In addition, the Secretariat of the CBD (SCBD) has added me to their mailing list, so that I am receiving the SCBD’s announcements and official notifications. The protocols, analyses and commentaries of UN events, as well as mailing lists and networks provided and maintained by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), have proven to be invaluable to gain an understanding of global policy-making and the science-policy interface (SPI).

During those four years of engagement in the CBD SPI, I did learn about diplomatic protocols, the value of formalized negotiation processes, and the different roles within the CBD with their limits – which at times can be strengths, and the other way around. As I discovered soon, a main hurdle was to learn a new vocabulary. Terms had their own sets of meanings, historical background and often far-ranging contextual connections. Now I am comfortable with a “human rights-based approach,” “IPLCs,” understand the power of concepts like “Mother Earth,” and know that I need to again look up the contextual fine print of the difference between “nature-based solutions” and “ecosystem approach.” There is also an important difference between the CBD’s “biological diversity” and the “genetic resources” of the “NP,” “DSI,” “TK,” “Article 10,” and the “Cali fund” as a “multilateral mechanism.” These terms don’t faze me anymore. “MAT” and “MTA” continue to make me think twice when I come across them.

The negotiations at the CBD and their fundamental topics are not that different from the dynamics within SPNHC, which reflect those within the wider collections, bioinformatics, and science communities. When it comes to action and implementation, this generally and quickly turns to who has the budgets and long-term economies to do what and when. Members engage in discussions/debates about the relationships and roles of, for example, small and large institutions, the Global North and South, institutions and individuals, those who want to preserve what is, and those who want to innovate.

In this give and take, even struggle, it is most important for everyone to keep faith, continue to be in communication and interactions (as difficult as it sometimes might be), and when challenges arise, stand together and support each other. What our communities and civil societies at large cannot afford is that parties turn away, leaving behind burnt bridges, no matter if this is an individual taxonomist dropping off the radar to earn a living elsewhere, the community that is maintaining a small collection finally giving up, a tenured colleague at a large institution not speaking up anymore or taking risks, or countries and whole socio-cultural realms leaving negotiations and not collaborating anymore.

The global level is hard to comprehend due to our planet’s and human society’s sheer size and deep complexities. Global organizations, such as the UN and SPNHC, today run on the optimism, enthusiasm, and hands-on attitude of their members. Too often this means that essential functions and operations are maintained by a comparably few. Burnout and disillusionment are important topics. Furthermore, active groups can form a tension-rich mix of highly paid (e.g., most UN diplomats) and volunteering professionals and experts (e.g., representatives of UN major stakeholder groups), resulting in a potential for high fluctuation in participants and engagement on both sides.

In view of the substantial challenges that human civil societies are facing, it seems unlikely that an engaged few will have the capacity and acceptance to be able to find, develop, and implement adequate, sustainable social and technical solutions that are to be rolled out to the many. Taking a step back, two foundations seem to be needed on the way forward, or at least promising and worthwhile to explore further.

What might be needed first are economies and ways to generate income that open up SPNHC’s associated communities to a much more diverse and larger number of actively participating professionals, scientists, and experts from all walks of life and all corners. By supporting desirable and secure livelihoods and enabling good, thriving lives, suitable economic bases have the potential to unlock the optimism and engagement of highly educated and proficient individuals and organizations from societies around the planet.

Successfully upscaling the human resources available provides a foundation for overcoming the multitude of today’s crises and disruptions, and moving towards a biodiverse and culturally rich, sustainable future. However, many more participating partners also require a much-expanded level of human and social capacity and experience to navigate the communication and negotiation needs of large, very diverse, and engaged communities. We will need to develop the experience and understanding of which tasks are best provided by large, well-structured institutions, which require the energy, independence, and flexibility of small and medium-sized businesses and their entrepreneurs, when nerdy engineers and academics should take the lead, and how to allow space for those pathfinders who dream, have visions or walk to a different beat.

The changes and events of the past years, if not a couple of decades, have taught us that the chances are slim for being able to continue with business as usual. Environmental and social conditions presumably will remain difficult for a foreseeable time. Most important on our path forward will be to live in solidarity with each other – not to forget, the living world and the planet’s environmental systems. Finding ways that provide us the means, and empower us to stand by each other as individuals, communities, up to the parties and regional groups of the CBD, will help us to keep faith in ourselves and others, remain optimistic, stay in communication, look for joint solutions, and find spaces and times to jointly mourn who and what we lost, celebrate achievements and enjoy where we are.

Respectfully submitted,
Jutta Buschbom, SPNHC representative to CBD

Entomological Collections Network

Background:

ECN formed an MOU with SPNHC in late 2016; this is our 9th annual report.  ECN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit international organization dedicated to promoting entomological science through the preservation, management, use and development of entomological collections, and to disseminating information and fostering communications between collections managers around the world regarding best practices in entomological (and arthropod) natural history collections. The network is organized and operated exclusively for scientific and educational purposes. 

ECN 2024 (In-person and virtual meeting; In-person: November 9-10, 2024):
ECN homepage: https://ecnweb.net/

The annual ECN meeting was held as a blend of in-person and virtual modalities again in 2024 to facilitate and foster international participation. The in-person venue was the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, Phoenix Ballroom D/E, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Here is a link to the meeting program:
https://ecnweb.net/welcome/meeting/ecn-2024/2023-program/

Meetings were held Saturday, November 9, and Sunday, November 10, 2024. Once again, the “virtual” presentations provided a unique opportunity to hear from colleagues who usually might not otherwise be able to attend the meetings and to virtually visit several entomological collections from all over the globe.

Contributed talks: 21
(5-minute) Lightning Talks: 9

Symposia included:

1) Collections Reaching Out.
Moderators: Jennifer C. Girón, Invertebrate Zoology Collection, Natural Science Research Laboratory, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA.; Victor H. Gonzalez, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology & Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.; & Rachel Osborn, Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA. (10 talks presented)

2) iNaturalist today, a mutually beneficial tool or a plaything for amateurs?
Moderator: Ingolf Askevold, Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry, Gainesville, Florida, USA. (4 talks)

 3) Using Collections to Solve Agricultural Problems
Moderators: Jessica Awad, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, & Robert L. Kresslein, Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Washington, DC, USA. (6 talks presented)

2024 meeting organizers: Oliver Keller, Ainsley Seago, Andrew Johnston, Jacki Whisenant, Patrick Gorring, Chris Wirth, Kristin Jayd, and Ashleigh Whiffin

ECN Social Media Team: Ainsley Seago and Ashleigh Whiffin
Program layout and design: Chris Wirth and Kristin Jayd
The ECN Executive Committee and Officers:
Oliver Keller, president (2023-2025)
Ainsley Seago, past president (2023-2025); co-communications officer (2023-2025)
M. Andrew Johnston, vice-president (2021-2025)
Patrick Gorring, treasurer (2016-2025)
Chris Wirth, program co-chair (2023-2025)
Kristin Jayd, program co-chair (2023-2025)
Ashleigh Whiffin, co-communications officer (2019-2025)

Next ECN Meeting:
The next meeting of ECN will be November 8-9, 2025, in conjunction with the November 9-12 Portland, Oregon, annual meetings of the Entomological Society of America meeting:
https://www.entsoc.org/events/annual-meeting

Check the ECN website (http://ecnweb.org/) periodically for the most up-to-date information. Further announcements will come through the ECN listserv and via social media platforms: Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/148208995368404/), Instagram (@entcollnet) and Twitter/X (@EntCollNtwrk).

Respectfully submitted,
Daniel K. Young, SPNHC representative to ECN

Integrated Digitized Biocollections

Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio) serves as the coordinating center for the U.S. national digitization effort funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF 2027654). iDigBio includes the Symbiota Support Hub, a service team and infrastructure resource for data portals that use the open-source software Symbiota to manage and/or mobilize their data (https://symbiota.org/).

In 2024, iDigBio has continued its work to foster partnerships and innovations, facilitate the development and sharing of digitization practices and workflows, and promote the use of biodiversity collections data by stakeholders through multiple initiatives, including:

• Enhancing and curating U.S. institution data in the Global Registry for Scientific Collections (https://scientific-collections.gbif.org/),
• Publishing workflows and protocols, such as geographic and taxonomic occurrence R-based scrubbing (an R package, https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11575),
• Organizing online and in-person workshops, including the Advances in Digital Media workshop series, Immersive Media for Biodiversity Collections, Symbiota Support Group meetings, iDigBio Education and Outreach Meetings, and iDigBio Stakeholder Engagement Meetings,
• Offering courses through the Digitization Academy (https://digitizationacademy.org/), including Introduction to Biodiversity Digitization (in English and Spanish), Public Participation in Digitization of Biodiversity Collections, Introduction to Immersive Media for Biodiversity Collections, Digital Imaging for Biodiversity Collections, and Introduction to Photogrammetry for Biodiversity Specimen Collectors,
• Offering semiannual courses on Strategic Planning to the biodiversity collections community,
• Coordinating Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDigBio; https://wedigbio.org/) events,
• Representing and promoting biodiversity collections at national and international conferences,
• Coordinating the annual Digital Data in Biodiversity conference (Lawrence, KS), BioDigiCon [POSTPONED], and iDigTRIO Biology Career Conference and Fair (https://www.idigtrio.org/),
• Improving the iDigBio data portal, including enhancing the support for extended specimen data and ensuring all data published to the iDigBio portal are additionally mobilized to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (https://www.gbif.org/) portal,
• Continuing to mobilize biodiversity specimen data to GBIF and the iDigBio portal (https://www.idigbio.org/), which now includes over 144M specimen records with more than 57M associated media records from 1,900+ recordsets,
• Supporting and enhancing the management and mobilization of biodiversity specimen data through 54 Symbiota portals containing 94.5+M occurrences and 42.7M images from 1,970 collections. The Symbiota Support Hub provides portal maintenance, help desk services, community capacitation, and documentation to these communities.

We encourage the SPNHC membership to explore what iDigBio can do for you. SPNHC members may benefit from:

• the iDigBio data portal (https://www.idigbio.org/portal/search) of digitized specimen data from U.S. institutions,
• the iDigBio listserv (IDIGBIO-L), which includes collections-related announcements and news applicable to an international audience. Send an email to listserv@lists.ufl.edu with the message “subscribe IDIGBIO-L YourFirstName YourLastName.”
• iDigBio-led events (https://www.idigbio.org/calendar), including courses offered through the Digitization Academy (e.g., Introduction to Biodiversity Specimen Digitization, Public Participation in Digitization of Biodiversity Collections), and Symbiota Support Group meetings, WeDigBio, and more!
• Symbiota Support Hub-hosted Symbiota portals (https://symbiota.org/symbiota-portals/), which can be used to manage, digitize, and share specimen data from biodiversity collections.

Respectfully submitted,
Katie Pearson, SPNHC representative to iDigBio

International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories

2024 marked the 25th anniversary of ISBER. Read about ISBER’s history of commitment to education, biospecimen science, and environmental preservation in “ISBER Corner: ISBER Marching Forward: A 25-Year Journey” here https://doi.org/10.1089/bio.2024.0144.

The ISBER 2025 Annual Meeting and Exhibit will be held in Montreal, Canada, May 13-16, 2025. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Northern Lights: Impact of the Global Biobanking Spectrum.” Register before February 19 for early bird pricing. See www.isber.org for more information regarding meetings, workshops, and biobanking resources.

Respectfully submitted,
Cynthia Y. Wang-Claypool, SPNHC representative to ISBER

Managers of Australasian Herbarium Collections

In November 2024, the Managers of Australasian Herbarium Collections (MAHC) held their annual two-day business meeting at PlantBank, Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan, New South Wales. Representatives from 11 herbaria and the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) attended in person, and a further 11 herbaria were represented online.

Key discussions centred on the management of data quality issues within the ALA; processes for nominating recipients of type specimen duplicates; and the revision of draft documents, including material transfer agreements, accession and acquisition documents, and documentation for visitors to herbaria. In-person attendees had the opportunity to tour the National Herbarium of New South Wales’ new herbarium, which was met with quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) envy from the many herbaria who face ever-increasing capacity and facilities challenges.

The MAHC and HISCOM (Herbarium Information Systems Committee) groups were well-represented at the 2024 joint TDWG/SPNHC meeting in Okinawa, with seven people attending in person and one online. Following the TDWG/SPNHC Conference, representatives from the Specify Collections Consortium ran a workshop hosted by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) in Perth on September 11–12, 2024. 2025 is a noteworthy year in the history of Australian herbarium collections, with June 30, 2025, marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, the “father of Australian botany” and the founder of the National Herbarium of Victoria (MEL). Staff at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria are preparing publications and planning a series of talks to commemorate Mueller’s contribution to botany while examining the legacy of Mueller’s life’s work through botanical, conservation and decolonial lenses.

Respectfully submitted,
Alison Vaughan, Manager Collections, National Herbarium of Victoria (MEL), Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and SPNHC representative to MAHC-CHAH

Society of Herbarium Curators

The Society of Herbarium Curators (SHC) is an international organization established in 2005 with the mission to promote and expand the role of herbaria in botanical research, teaching, and service to the community. Our growing society currently has over 475 members from more than 55 countries. The society provides a platform for discussion and collaboration among herbarium professionals and offers resources such as student research grants, strategic planning courses, and a newsletter, The Vasculum.

As with ASPT (see above), SHC held its annual meeting as part of the Botany 2024 conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The society will be meeting this year also at the Botany 2025 conference in Palm Springs, California, from July 26-30, 2025, with the theme “Botany Without Barriers.” A huge thank you, again, to the program organizers for pivoting so seamlessly to re-plan the event despite the incredibly short timeframe of moving an entire conference (scheduled years in advance!) from Tucson, Arizona.

SHC also had a sizable contingent at the XX International Botanical Congress (ICB) in Madrid, Spain. This gathering of botanists from around the world occurs every six years for discussions on plant nomenclature and amendments to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. SHC held a satellite meeting during the IBC, which was attended by more than 50 people. Herbarium curators and staff were, naturally, in attendance, but about half of the group were students, conservationists, and end-users! Great discussions, networking, and planning flowed from this and SHC is looking forward to tapping into this energy as we move into the future.

Please check out our newsletter, The Vasculum (https://www.herbariumcurators.org/newsletter/), to keep up with everything happening in the society and throughout the herbarium community.

Respectfully submitted,
Harlan Svoboda, SPNHC representative to SHC

The Paleontological Society
The next meeting of The Paleontological Society (PS) will be held during the Geological Society of America (GSA) meeting in San Antonio, Texas, October 19-22, 2025.

During the 2024 meeting in Anaheim, California, the PS Collections subcommittee hosted the short course “From the Earth to the Repository and Beyond: fossil collecting and collections issues at every level.” More information along with fossil collecting and collections resources can be found at https://paleo.memberclicks.net/2024-paleo-short-course. The subcommittee also has plans to publish two contributions on topics from the short course in the society’s Elements of Paleontology series.

Respectfully submitted,
Jessica Cundiff, SPNHC representative to PS

MEMBERS-AT-LARGE REPORTS

Irene Finkelde

In my role as Member-at-Large, I was asked to chair a new sessional committee to help oversee and manage the California Collection Project Grants. SPNHC received a grant from the California Institute for Biodiversity last year. These grants are intended to help rescue collections at risk relating to California.

The new sessional committee recently put out a call for grant applications which are due at the end of March. I look forward to continuing work with the committee to review the applications and award the grant funds to the successful applicants.

I will be finishing up my role as Member-at-Large in May 2025. I have really enjoyed working with the council and various committees over the last few years, learning how the organization runs, and getting to know the wonderful members that make SPNHC so great! 

Irene Finkelde, MAL (2022-2025)

Jennifer Trimble
For my second year as Member-at-Large, I continued my work with the Best Practices Committee while promoting the information to my home institution and other mollusk collections. I am compiling new workflows and protocols from the MCZ invertebrate departments, developed during a newly funded microscope slide specimen-focused NSF TCN grant. These can be disseminated through the SPNHC portals, and eventually the wiki. Historically, connections between grant-funded projects and workflow-sharing repositories haven’t always been made, but I am working to change that.

I assisted with the 2024 conference, held jointly with Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) in Okinawa, Japan, which was a success thanks to all those involved, particularly the local organizing committee. Now, I am focused on planning a Museums Collections Symposium for the upcoming World Congress of Malacology, in August 2025.

Jennifer Trimble, MAL (2022-2025)