Dear Colleagues,
The local organizing committee, a partnership between the Otago Museum and the University of Otago, is honored to host the 33rd annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, August 25 – September 1, 2018. For the first time the meeting will be held in the Southern Hemisphere in Dunedin, New Zealand. It will also be the first time that the meeting will be jointly held with the Biodiversity Information Standards community, TDWG.
TDWG was formed to establish international collaboration among biological database projects and promote the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the World’s heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large. Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) now focuses on the development of standards for the exchange of biological/biodiversity data.
The theme of the meeting is “Collections and Data in an Uncertain World” and we hope to explore strategies and practices that may mitigate risks to both the physical collections and the data derived from them. We invite both TDWG and SPNHC members to submit proposals for workshops and symposia, which can be organized around already established themes or emerging topics of interest. Priority will be given to proposals addressing this year’s theme and cross-cutting the goals and activities of both SPNHC and TDWG. Symposia are typically a series of talks (this year, 10 or 20 minutes in length in 80 minute sessions) and may culminate in a discussion. Workshops may have formal presentations but typically encourage more active engagement through training activities or facilitating a consensus around a key issue.
SPNHC members may also submit proposals for abstracts and posters etc.
Key Dates and Deadlines
- The call for abstracts, workshops, posters etc. for SPNHC will begin Wednesday 20 December 2017
- The deadline for all abstracts and travel grant submissions is close of business, your local time, Monday 12 March 2018
- Speakers and travel grant recipients will be notified by 2 April 2018
Please submit your proposals via the conference website: http://spnhc-tdwg2018.nz/abstract-submission/
SPNHC will be awarding Christine Allen, Jean de Mouthe, and Fitzgerald Travel grants for the 2018 meeting. Please find eligibility requirements and application instructions on the SPNHC 2018 website: spnhc-tdwg2018.nz. Please note that successful recipients are paid in US dollars by check or via PayPal.
The deadline for abstract and travel grant application submissions is your local time, 12 March 2018.
See you in Dunedin
Robert Morris, Local Organizing Committee Chair
Shelley James, TDWG Program Co-Chair