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. The SPNHC Connection Newsletter is currently undergoing a full redesign that will be better adapted to current trends in digital content and social media. Our next complete newsletter will be published in February 2023. This shorter edition includes announcements and reports from our representatives.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Update on the proposed joint 2024 Conference with TDWG in Okinawa, Japan
At the ABM in Edinburgh earlier this year, we presented outline proposals to join with TDWG for a joint meeting in Okinawa for 2024. However, at that time, the proposal still required further work to enable the SPNHC membership to endorse it, and we thus agreed to explore further with TDWG. After some months of hard work by a joint organising committee formed by the two societies, we are very excited to share the developments that have been made to hold a SPNHC 2024 annual meeting jointly with TDWG (Biodiversity Information Standards) in Okinawa, Japan. This will provide a golden opportunity to welcome Asia-Pacific members of natural history collections and biodiversity data communities. It will also be an unparalleled opportunity for membership of both organizations to make new connections and encourage international collaboration with their counterparts in Asia. The theme of the conference is enhancing local capacity, elevating global standards.
The proposed meeting dates are in the first week of September 2024, with main events happening from Tuesday the 3rd through Saturday the 7th of September. We have a conference venue proposed at the Okinawa Convention Center adjoining a beautiful beach and affordable hotel accommodations. The content will be delivered in a hybrid mode, allowing for both synchronous and asynchronous participation by remote attendees. The conference programme will be developed in an integrated format as much as possible, including joint sessions, symposia and networking events. Excursion and field trip locations on and around the Okinawa Island are being actively explored, such as museums, field research stations, and World Heritage sites.
Okinawa 2024 will signify the second joint meeting with TDWG and SPNHC after the remarkable success of the first joint conference in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 2018. What is even more significant is that SPNHC will be coming to Asia for the first time in nearly 40 years of its history. Shortly, we will be presenting these proposals formally to the society’s membership, as agreed at the 2022 ABM in Edinburgh, and hope you will join us in supporting this meeting so we can look forward to welcoming you all to TDWG-SPNHC 2024 in Okinawa.
Submitted on behalf of the SPNHC Executive Council,
Julian Carter, SPNHC President
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, 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.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, no collection accreditations were completed during 2021. However, Northern Michigan University, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma, and the Colección Regional Durango (CRD), Durango, Mexico, have provided the Committee with self-evaluation reports and are awaiting accreditation visits.
Self-evaluation documents were sent to Arizona State University Natural History Collections, Tempe, and to the Arizona Museum of Natural History, University of Arizona, Tucson, for potential accreditation or reaccreditation in conjunction with the annual ASM meeting in June 2022. Committee members attending the annual meeting subsequently conducted a site visit in the mammal collection at Arizona Museum of Natural History, University of Arizona, Tucson. This arrangement has proven to be useful in training newer committee members about the accreditation process. It is also an enjoyable way to get like-minded people together to talk about issues confronting our collections.
Many members of the committee have been active participants in the Museums and Emerging Pathogens in the Americas (MEPA) consortium. The main aims of MEPA include: (1) enhancing discoverability, digitization, and accessibility of Latin American mammal collections and tissue biorepositories; (2) facilitating the linkage between natural history collections, emerging disease research, and One Health initiatives; (3) adding/enhancing collections data for Latin American collections contained in the Survey and Directory of Mammal Collections of the Western Hemisphere.
Conversion of the Survey and Directory of Mammal Collections of the Western Hemisphere into a digital format hosted on the ASM website was proposed in 2021 but no progress was made because the ASM website, itself, is undergoing migration. This effort will be revived in the coming year in collaboration with the Informatics Committee, which oversees the ASM website.
To view the documents mentioned here and other collection-related information, see: http://www.mammalogy.org/committees/informatics.
Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne B. McLaren, SPNHC Representative to ASM
Geological Curators Group (GCG)
GCG is a membership organisation and registered charity, founded in 1974 and affiliated to the Geological Society of London. Membership is open to anyone interested in geology, particularly individuals and organisations working with and caring for geological collections.
Our mission statement can be found here: About GCG
In May 2022, GCG hosted the ‘Marine Reptile Mini Conference’, a half-day online event to discuss current research and recent discoveries in the field of fossil marine reptiles. This included a presentation on the ‘Rutland Sea Dragon’, the largest and most complete ichthyosaur skeleton ever found in Britain. View posters and talk abstracts at: Marine Reptile Mini Conference
An in-person event will be held at The Etches Collection, Kimmeridge in 2023, check back for further details.
The SPPC 2022 (Symposium on Palaeontological Preparation and Conservation) took place in September at the Natural History Museum, London, in conjunction with the Symposium on Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA). Abstracts and posters from this and previous years can be viewed here
On 1st December 2022, GCG will hold a one-day online joint symposium with SMMP (The Society of Mineral Museum Professionals) and the 49th GCG annual meeting. The theme is Uniting Earth Science Collections – the continued importance of collections, and what we can learn from them. The theme is broad, and abstracts will be accepted on any geological collections, not just mineralogical collections. This will be a great opportunity to share experience and knowledge within the sector. Further details can be found here.
The Geological Curator is the official journal of GCG, published once a year, the most recent content (last two years) is only available to members, but older issues are freely available at Browse Issues
The December 2022 issue will be a special ethics edition. A paper on ‘Creative compliance, neutralization techniques, and palaeontological ethic’ by Donna Yates is available to non-members.
A special edition double issue covering two popular GCG events “Making the Most of a Move” and “Collectors, Collections and the Geology of South West Britain” is also freely available to non-members at Geological Curator 11(2)
We welcome contributions to Geological Curator from non GCG members. If you would like to submit an article for the 2023 edition, please visit Journal. The deadline for contributions is the end of February 2023.
Can you help? We are looking for a new Journal Editor, Communications Coordinator and Program Secretary. If you are interested in any of these roles, please visit: Get involved
GCG are very grateful to NatSCA for sharing their exhibition table at SPNHC 2022, it was great to see so many SPNHC members at Edinburgh this year!
To see the benefits of GCG membership, view our Blog, News, Geological Curator journal and newsletter Coprolite, please visit us at: https://www.geocurator.org/
Email: info@geocurator.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeologicalCuratorsGroup
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OriginalGCG
Sign up to our mailing list: JISCMail – GEO-CURATORS
Respectfully submitted,
Andrew Haycock, SPNHC Representative to GCG