[NHCOLL-L:4560] Collections RCN Workshop announcement

[Hank Bart]

Dear Colleagues,

 

The Steering Committee of the Natural History Collections Research
Coordination Network (CollectionsWeb, http://www.collectionsweb.org/) is
seeking participants in a workshop entitled "New Research Opportunities
Emerging from Integrating Data Across Different Taxonomic Collections". The
workshop will be held March 26-28, 2010 at the Iberville Suites Hotel in
Downtown, New Orleans.  One of the main goals of the CollectionsWeb RCN is
to stimulate new  research - and new research funding - involving natural
history collections and people working in collections.  This is the third in
a series of six workshops being organized by the project.  In planning this
workshop, we were struck by the fact that most Natural History
Collections-whether university-based or in free standing museums-are managed
as separate, taxonomically-delimited units. Collection databases and
database networks typically have the same taxonomic delimitation.  This
workshop will explore new research opportunities and synergism that can
emerge when data are integrated across collections representing different
groups of organisms. Examples of the kinds of data integration that will be
explored include associations among organisms, such as symbionts, parasites
and their hosts, plants and herbivores, and environmentally or
geographically defined communities (e.g., aquatic organisms, desert biota).
The workshop will explore challenges to retrieving data from different kinds
of collections, and enabling new search criteria (e.g., by association,
habitat, geography).  We are open to considering other kinds of
collections-based research, but we want to fully explore the topic of
collection data integration.

 

If you are presently involved in research like this, or have other ideas for
collections-based research, we want to hear from you.  Please send a brief
statement (1-3 paragraphs) describing your interest or experiences in
integrating data across diverse taxonomic collections, and a 2-page CV or
biographical sketch to Hank Bart (hank at museum.tulane.edu).  Participation is
limited, so please respond right away.   The CollectionsWeb Steering
Committee will be recruiting workshop participants through the months of
October and November.

 

Many thanks in advance,

Hank Bart

Collections Web Steering Committee

 

 

Henry L. Bart, Jr., Ph.D.

Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Boggs 400  Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118-5698
Phone: (504) 865-5191; Fax: (504) 862-8706

 

Director and Curator of Fishes, Tulane Museum of Natural History

3705 Main Street, Belle Chasse, LA 70037

Phone (504) 394-171; Fax (504) 394-5045

http://www.museum.tulane.edu/hank

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20091012/1ae84e92/attachment.html