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THE

32nd ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING

OF THE

SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS

“The Next Generation in Best Practices"

Denver Museum of Nature & Science

and

Denver Botanic Gardens

Denver, Colorado, USA

June 18–24, 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Agenda for the Annual Business Meeting ............................................................................................ 3 2016–2017 List of SPNHC Members Serving on Council and Committees .......................................... 4 Minutes of the Secretary: 2016 ............................................................................................................ 7 Report of the President ...................................................................................................................... 10 Report of the Treasurer...................................................................................................................... 13 Standing Committee Reports ............................................................................................................. 20

Archives ......................................................................................................................................... 20 Best Practices ................................................................................................................................ 20 Bylaws ........................................................................................................................................... 21 Conference .................................................................................................................................... 21 Conservation ................................................................................................................................. 21 Elections ........................................................................................................................................ 22 Emerging Professionals ................................................................................................................. 23 Legislation and Regulations ........................................................................................................... 23 Long-Range Planning .................................................................................................................... 24 Membership ................................................................................................................................... 24 Professional Development ............................................................................................................. 24 Publications ................................................................................................................................... 25 Recognition and Grants ................................................................................................................. 26 Web ............................................................................................................................................... 27

Sessional Committee Reports............................................................................................................ 27 International Relations ................................................................................................................... 27 US Federal Collections .................................................................................................................. 28

Representative Reports ..................................................................................................................... 29 Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada (ANHMC) ............................................................ 29 American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) ........................................ 29 American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) ....................................................... 29 American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) .................................................................................... 29 American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) ............................................................................ 30 Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS) ....................................................... 30 Collections Stewardship Professional Network, AAM (CS-AAM) .................................................... 31 Entomological Collections Network (ECN) ..................................................................................... 31 Geological Society of America (GSA) ............................................................................................ 32 Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) ............................................................................... 32 Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio) ................................................................................... 33 International Council of Museums—Comm. for Collections of Natural History (ICOM-NATHIST) ... 33 International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) ................................ 33 Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA) ...................................................................... 34 Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSC Alliance) ...................................................................... 34 Paleontological Society (PS) .......................................................................................................... 34 Scientific Collections International (SciColl) ................................................................................... 35 Small Collections Network (SCNet) ................................................................................................ 35 Society of Herbarium Curators (SHC) ............................................................................................ 36 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) ...................................................................................... 36 Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) ............................................................................ 36

Appendix 1: Accountant’s Review Report and Financial Statements ................................................. 37 Appendix 2: Bylaws ........................................................................................................................... 47

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Agenda for the Annual Business Meeting

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting

23 June 2017 Curtis Denver Hotel, 1405 Curtis Street

Denver, Colorado USA

1. Call to order. 2. Agenda. 3. Minutes of the 2016 Annual Business Meeting. 4. Report of the President. 5. Report of the Treasurer. 6. Reports of Standing Committees.

a. Archives b. Best Practices c. Bylaws d. Conference e. Conservation f. Elections g. Emerging Professionals h. Legislation and Regulations i. Long-Range Planning j. Membership k. Professional Development l. Publications m. Recognition and Grants n. Web Site

7. Reports of Sessional Committees. a. International Relations b. US Federal Collections

8. Reports of Representatives (21) Due to time constraints, please refer to the printed reports.

9. New Business. 10. Old Business. 11. Announcements. 12. Adjournment.

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2015–2016 List of SPNHC Members Serving on Council and Committee

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS MEMBERS-AT-LARGE

President Linda S. Ford 2014–2017 Julian Carter President-Elect Barbara Thiers 2014–2017 Melinda Peters Past President Andrew Bentley 2015–2018 Bethany Palumbo Treasurer Ruth O'Leary 2015–2018 Rusty Russell Managing Editor Christine Johnson 2016–2019 Miranda Lowe Secretary Cindy Opitz 2016–2019 Kelly Tomajko

STANDING COMMITTEES

Archives Committee

Linda Hollenberg Co-chair Meghann Toner Co-chair Carol Kelloff Co-chair Lisa F. Palmer Meghann Toner EPG liaison

Best Practices Committee Jessica D. Cundiff Co-chair Breda Zimkus Co-chair Lori Benson Dirk Neumann Andrew Bentley Kristen Nicholson Emily Braker Melinda Peters Bryan Brunet Marcia Revelez Michelle Coyne Randy Singer Magdalena Grenda-Kurmanow Cathy Hawks Genevieve Tocci Gabriela Hogue Greg Watkins-Colwell Travis Marsico Andrew Williston Amanda Millhouse Dan Young William Moser

Citations Subcommittee of Best Practices Margaret Landis Chair Stephanie Allen EPG Liaison Mariko Kageyama Jessica Utrup Ann Pinzl Janet Waddington

Bylaws Committee

Andrew Bentley Chair (Past President) Laura Abraczinskas Ann Molineux Chris Norris

Conference Committee

Barbara Thiers, Chair (President-Elect) Marcia Revelez, Sponsor Liaison, N. America Clare Valentine, Sponsor Liaison, Europe Elise LeCompte, Chair SPNHC Annual Mtg Travel, Grant Program Subcomm. Christiane Quaisser Berlin, 2016 Kelly Tomajko Denver 2017

Conservation Committee

Armando Mendez Co-chair Rebecca Newberry Co-chair

Gretchen Anderson RDU USA Stephanie Black RDU Asia Julian Carter RDU Europe Mariana Di Giacomo RDU South America Luci Cipera Envir/Sustainability Carolyn Leckie Envir/Sustainability Robert Waller Value Change Estim. Andrew Bently Fluid Collections Richard Sabin Fluid Collections Lori Benson Fran Ritchie Suzanne B. McLaren Kelly Sendall Rebecca Morin Jude Southward Cindy Opitz Tom Strang Bethany Palumbo Clare Valentine Mark Renczkowski Annette Van Aken

Election Committee

Bethany Palumbo Chair Kelly Sendall

Emerging Professionals Committee Kari Harris Co-chair Katie Kirkham Worthen Co-chair Meghann Toner Archive Committee Fran Ritchie Best Practices Committee Katie Kirkham Blog Editor, Web Committee Conservation Committee Stephanie Allen Documentation Committee Mariana Di Giacomo International Relations Comm. Casey Tucker Long-Range Planning Comm. Kari Harris Membership Committee Colleen Evans Professional Development Katie McComas Publications Committee

Executive Committee Linda S. Ford Chair

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Legislation and Regulations Committee Stephanie D. Carson Co-chair Dirk Neumann Co-chair Katharine Barker Rusty Russell Alex Borisenko Lori Schlenker Carol Butler John Simmons Ana Casino Skip Skidmore Kate Davis Brian Spatola Jean-Marc Gagnon Jennifer Stafford Peter Giere Ann Therriault Kathy Hollis Barbara Thiers Mariko Kageyama Kelly Tomajko Janaki Krishna Jeremiah Trimble William Moser Greg Watkins-Colwell Kristen Nicholson David Werneke Richard Rabeler Breda Zimkus Andrew Bentley, Transport of Dangerous Goods Long-Range Planning Committee Barbara Thiers Chair (President-Elect) Suzanne Ryder Co-chair Laura Abraczinskas Suzanne Ryder James Macklin Richard Sabin Ann Molineux Debra Trock Bethany Palumbo

Membership Committee

Tiffany Adrain Chair Elena Benamy Rachel Malloy Mireia Beas-Moix Ann Molineux Richard Busch Ann Pinzl Kari Harris Greg Watkins-Colwell Talia Karim

Professional Development Committee

Jeff Stephenson Co-chair Jennifer Strotman Co-chair Elena Benamy Travis Marsico Christina Byrd Gil Nelson Colleen Evans Nasreen Phillips Kari Harris Rusty Russell Linda Hollenberg Meghann Toner Robert Huxley Lindsay Woodruff

Elise Le Compte Katie Kirkham-Worthen

Publications Committee Christine Johnson Chair, Ed. Collection Forum Matthew Brown Assoc. Ed. Collection Forum Yemisi Dare Assoc. Ed. Collection Forum Alana Gishlick Assoc. Ed. Collection Forum Janet Waddington Assoc. Ed. Collection Forum Liath Appleton Editor, SPNHC Connection Lori Schlenker Asst. Ed., SPNHC Connection Katie McComas Advertising, SPNHC Conn. Lynn Jones Bk Reviews, SPNHC Conn. Ann Pinzl Bk Reviews, SPNHC Conn. Mari Roberts Editor, Technical Leaflets Lisa Elkin Special Publication Editor Christopher Norris Special Publication Editor

Recognition and Grants Committee Andrew Bentley Chair Jean-Marc Gagnon Suzanne B. McLaren Christopher Norris

SPNHC Web Committee

Liath Appleton Co-chair Ann Molineux Co-chair Lynn Jones Social Media Katie Kirkham-Worthen EPG Liaison

James Macklin Technology Liaison Jessica Utrup NH-COLL-list manager Gabriela Hogue

SESSIONAL COMMITTEES

International Relations Sue Ryder Chair Mariana Di Giacomo EPG Liaison

US Federal Collections

Matthew Brown Chair Rochelle Bennett Greg McDonald Carol Butler Chris Norris Terry Childs Sally Shelton Scott Foss Elizabeth Varner Janaki Krishna

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ORGANIZATIONAL REPRESENTATION

Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada (ANHMC): Kelly Sendall

American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC): Gretchen Anderson

American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH): Greg Watkins-Colwell

American Society of Mammalogists (ASM): Suzanne McLaren

American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT): Richard Rabeler

Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS): John E. Simmons

Collections Stewardship Professional Networkd, AAM (CS-AAM): John E. Simmons

Entomological Collections Network (ECN): Dan Young

Geological Society of America (GSA): Ann Molineux

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF): James Macklin

Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio): Deb Paul

International Council of Museums—Committee for Collections of Natural History (ICOM-

NATHIST): Kelly Sendall

International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER): Breda Zimkus

Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA): Roberto Portela Miguez

Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA): Robert Gropp

Paleontological Society (PaleoSoc): Jessica D. Cundiff

Scientific Collections International (SciColl): Barbara Thiers

Small Collections Network (SCNet): Anna Monfils

Society of Herbarium Curators (SCH): Richard Rabeler

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP): Matthew Brown

Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG): James Macklin

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Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections

Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting 24 June 2016

Andel’s Hotel Conference Center, Berlin, Germany

The ABM proceedings were recorded by iDigBio and can be found at https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/SPNHC_2016_Recordings

Members Present: 67

Call to order

Meeting called to order by SPNHC president, Andy Bentley, at 12:17 PM CEST. Andy Bentley welcomed everyone.

1. Agenda Motion: To approve the agenda (found on page 3 of the 2016 ABM packet).

Moved: Barbara Thiers; Seconded: Linda Ford All in favor: Opposed: 0 Motion carried

2. Minutes Motion: To accept the minutes of the last Annual Business Meeting, 22 May 2015, Gainesville, FL, USA (found on page 7 of the 2016 ABM packet). Moved: Meghann Toner; Seconded: Elise LeCompte All in favor: Opposed: 0 Motion carried

3. President’s Report See written report starting on page 11 of the 2016 ABM packet.

4. Treasurer’s Report

R. O’Leary presents written report (page 13–19 and accountants review 38–47 of the 2016 ABM packet)

Thank donors and admonish delinquents to pay their dues. Expressed thanks to those who helped during the year and thanks to AMNH for their support.

Motion: To accept our new and re-instated members for 2016 and 2017.

Moved: Rob Waller; Seconded: Cindy Opitz All in favor: Opposed: 0 Motion carried

Motion: To accept the report of the Treasurer and 2016 budget as amended.

Moved: Gretchen Anderson; Seconded: Kelly Sendall All in favor: Opposed: 0 Motion carried

The President extended his thanks to the Treasurer, Ruth O’Leary, for all her hard work during the year.

5. Reports of Standing Committees: See written reports in 2016 ABM package, starting on page 20 of the ABM packet

a. Archives – Meghann Toner- Please refer to written report b. Best Practices – Breda Zimkus, Jessica Cundiff, and Margaret Landis- Please refer to

written report c. Bylaws – Chris Norris- Please refer to written report d. Conference – Linda Ford- Please refer to written report e. Conservation – Armando Mendez, Rebecca Newberry- Please refer to written report

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g. Elections – Bethany Palumbo-not present. Kelly Sendall- Please refer to written report and welcome the new results of election President –elect: Barbara Thiers, Secretary: Cindy Opitz, Members at large: Miranda Lowe, Kelly Tomajko. Asked for nominations for this year (2 MALs) by the end of August h. Emerging professionals – Kari Harris- not present i. Legislation and Regulations – Dirk Neumann, Stephanie Carson- new subcommittee Andy Bentley thanked them for graciously taking over this committee and said good things are expected from them. j. Long-Range Planning – Linda Ford- Please refer to written report k. Membership – Tiffany Adrain- Refer to written report

l. Professional Development – Jeff Stephenson, Jennifer Strotman- we need to add material for newsletter, demo camp developments, mentorship and the new wiki. Welcomes Jennifer Strotman as new co-chair m. Publications – Christine Johnson- Please refer to written report n. Recognition and Grants – Chris Norris- Please refer to written report o. Web – Liath Appleton – also newsletter editor- not present- Ann Molineux- Please refer to

written report 6. Reports of Sessional Committees: - See written reports in 2016 ABM package, page 27 a. International Relations – Suzanne Ryder- Please refer to written report b. US Federal Collections – Chris Norris- Please refer to written report

7. Representative Reports:

For expediency – See written reports in 2016 ABM package, starting on page 28

8. New Business:

1. Deb Paul: General input on the idea of a data workshop before or after SPNHC. General thoughts sort.

2. Chris Johnson: a. New online availability of articles as they are completed. It will cost $15/

manuscript. Total volume will be published at the end of the year. b. Also posed idea for workshop on data preparation to help authors improve

things like statistics and graphs. c. Then moved on to the new storage book. “Preventive Conservation: Collection

Storage” This is a new volume covering all aspects of collection storage. The title allows for there to be additional volumes. It is not meant to replace the current SPNHC Storage volume. Editors are Lisa Elkins and Chris Norris and the publishers are SPNHC, AIC, The Smithsonian Institution, and GWU. Publication expected early 2017. Volume c. 700 pages, 30 chapters and over 80 contributors. 8 sections with individual editors. Design by Aptara Corp. All papers are submitted, 75% reviewed, 50% complete and 25% in process. Many promotional activities starting with a very successful storage session at AIC and AAM. One also proposed for SPNHC 2017. Website with abstracts http://resources.conservation-us.org/collection-storage pre-orders at Collection- Storage@conservation-us.org

9. Awards Note that the society has the privilege to recognize individuals who make contributions to the society and our professional field:

The Carolyn L. Rose. Award is our Society's highest honor and is presented to a *practitioner* whose work and efforts have promoted the values and objectives of the Society. This award is presented in recognition of an individual or individuals for special efforts leading to the success of an important event or activity of the Society.

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A. Carolyn L Rose Award – David Pinniger – Armando Mendez spoke in support of this nomination and how Pinniger had influenced his career. Sue Ryder also spoke in support of his contribution. Recorded video gave him a chance to respond to the award and talk about his interesting road to the IPM world. Andy Bentley congratulated him on behalf of SPNHC.

B. Special Service Award to 2016 LOC chairs – Christiane Quaisser, Peter Giere (Andy Bentley) Christiane Quaisser accepted on behalf of the NHM and the Botanical Gardens. She expressed her hope that the meeting went smoothly for everyone involved. Very important that we all came, we were a great group and she really enjoyed having us. Andy Bentley then extended thanks to the entire team.

C. SPNHC poster awards – top three

Comparison of two lid types for museum fluid collections by Kirsten E. Nicholson and Lillian Hendricks, Museum of Cultural and Natural History at Central Michigan University.

Palms and Carl von Martius in the Botanic Garden Meise by Viviane Leyman, Sofie De Smedt and Piet Stoffelen, Botanic Garden Meise, Collections Department, Melse, Belgium.

Needle felting fills: Creating fills for areas of fur loss using needle felting as a technique by Suzie Li Wan Po, Cambridge University Museum of Zoology, Conservation, Cambridge, UK.

D. An ad hoc award was presented by Peter Giere for the most interesting dancers after the banquet. He showed several humorous images of dancers and then announced the winner. The award went to the dancing duo of Tom Strang and Linda Ford for their “style and endurance.” He hoped this would start another SPNHC tradition!

10. Upcoming Meetings:

2017: Kelly Tomajko and Melissa Islam Kelly Tomajko spoke and thanked on behalf of the Denver Museum of Natural History and the Botanic Garden and also Melissa Islam and Jeff Stephenson. Theme is broad, “The Next Generation is Best Practices.” Accommodation at the Curtis Hotel and campus village. Schedule will be different starting with workshops and ending with field trips to accommodate the mile high altitude adjustment. Collections tours on Friday in the newly constructed collections building. Variety of field trips,

A. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument B. Rocky Mountain Arsenal and National Wildlife Property Repository C. Nature to Nurture, Mt. Goliath, Denver Botanic Gardens D. Dinosaurs, Projectile Points and Beer, oh my!

Main portion of meeting 4 days long.

2018: Robert Morris Andy Bentley: If the brochure is any indicator the meeting will be a ‘cracker’. Robert Morris: Thanks SPNHC and gave a detailed rundown of the location in Dunedin and how the meeting will help celebrate the Museum’s 50th anniversary and promote SPNHC in this part of the world. He then provided detailed location of New Zealand, noting that its position on the edge of the Pacific Plate leads to a possible theme “Strategies in Disaster programming”, noting the Christchurch earthquake and tsunamis elsewhere in the region. Details about the meeting location in the Museum and University where there are rooms that will seat, 200, 300 and 500. A website will be developed. No hiding the distance LA to Christchurch 15 hrs. Note LA to Berlin is 13 hours. They will work with New Zealand Air for group rates. Want to try to integrate or run concurrent session with TDWG. James Macklin: SPNHC representative to TDWG. Spoke about the importance of meeting together as our roles are merging, especially in the area of digitization. He thinks they

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will accept the joint meeting idea in December. Motion: That the membership accepts the invitation from Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand to host the 2018 annual conference of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. Moved: Ann Pinzl; Second: Elana Benamy All in favor: Opposed: 0 Motion carried

11. Old Business: None

12. Announcements:

Christiane Quaisser: Participants lists and corrections to the conference book will be available on the website. She also warned about traffic problems on the way to the airport.

New President and Secretary – Linda Ford and Cindy Opitz (Bentley) Andy Bentley: presidential term coming to an end, task was to hopefully push the goals of the society forward and explore new directions. Hopes that he has made some progress. Thanked Council and Chairs without whose work and dedication his job would not be possible. Notes Ann Molineux will also be stepping down and then welcomes the incoming president and secretary and asks them to take the podium

13. ADJOURNMENT Motion: To adjourn at 1:45 CEST. Moved: Linda Ford

Respectfully submitted, Ann Molineux

Report of the President

Although much has been accomplished, it does not seem that it has been a year since our last meeting! First, I want to welcome our two newest Members-at-Large, Amanda Lawrence, Museum Technician from the Smithsonian NMNH and Deborah Paul, Digitization & Workforce Training Specialist at iDigBio (Institute for Digital Information). Collectively, they bring to Council a breadth of knowledge and fresh ideas that will serve us well when dealing with issues concerning the well-being and promotion of collections, and we look forward to working with both of them. Amanda’s and Deborah’s three-year term will begin at the end of this meeting.

I also want to thank Julian Carter from the National Museum of Wales and Melinda Peters from the Smithsonian NMNH, who will be stepping down at the end of their terms for their service as Members-at-Large. Our Society critically depends on the dedication of those who volunteer and we’re very grateful to Julian and Melinda for their active involvement in its affairs.

In addition, there are some changes in our Society’s leadership and committee structures. Barbara Thiers stepped down as a Members-at-Large in order to start her term as President Elect. Melinda Peters was appointed to complete the third year of Barbara’s term as MaL. There also was a change in committee leadership as Meghann Toner stepped down as the Co-chair of the Archives Committee. Carol Kelloff, who served on the committee, will take on the Co-chair responsibilities with Linda Hollenberg. Because this change happened just before the end of the appointment year, all three will be listed as Co-chairs on the Archives Committee ABM report. Lastly, on August 1, our Publications Editor, Christine Johnson, will be stepping down. Christine has done an excellent job and has been instrumental in raising and maintaining the excellence of the SPNHC publications. The Society is actively searching to fill this important leadership position and we encourage anyone with an interest to step forward.

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SPNHC is a vibrant and active society and this year proved no different. Along with the achievements noted in the ABM Committee reports, I would like to highlight some of the Society’s activities this past year.

To further develop our professional ties and activities, several mutual agreements were signed between SPNHC and other professional organizations. These agreements aim to increase and improve collaboration in all areas of common interest. This year, an MOU was signed with the Entomological Collections Network (ECN), and an Affiliate Agreement was signed with ISBER (The International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories). Both of these agreements are a significant achievement since, in most natural history museums, the entomology collections represent the largest number of specimens and the genomic collections tend to represent the fastest growing collections. All of SPNHC’s mutual agreements include an arrangement to represent the other society on our respective websites. To accommodate our organizational partners, webmaster Liath Appleton created an Affiliations page, which can be found on the SPNHC website at: http://www.spnhc.org/92/affiliations. This webpage is a display of our affinity with other professionals interested in natural history collections.

SPNHC continues to be a major partner in the Biological Collections Network (BCoN) NSF Research Coordination Network (RCN) grant tasked with building a broader community to advance and sustain digitization of collections. The SPNHC Presidency was inducted into the advisory council for BCoN as a new member to the board. In January, a workshop was held to explore future research opportunities that are made possible due to current national initiatives to digitize and mobilize data from various US biodiversity collections. The summary report from this meeting is being drafted and will be made available for broader comment from the community. An update to the BCoN initiative submitted by RCN grant co-PI Rob Gropp is included as an addendum to the President’s ABM report.

SPNHC participated, along with other prominent organizations, in multiple significant actions that helped to voice and further advance the general interests of the Society. These actions included:

• Being one of the interdisciplinary groups of scientific organizations that were signatories to the Presidential Science Questions Letter that was presented to all four presidential campaigns during the US Presidential elections. Links to the answers of all the candidate’s responses, including President Trump’s response, were posted to the SPNHC listserv NHCOLL.

• Joining the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) to sponsor the 9th annual Biological Sciences Congressional District Visits event. As a result, SPNHC members were invited to interact with lawmakers this summer. This national initiative, which was advertised via the SPNHC listserv NHCOLL, is an opportunity for science professionals across the country to meet with their federal and/or state elected officials to showcase the people, equipment and facilities that are required to support and conduct scientific research based and promoted by natural history collections.

• Responding to a call for comment on the US Department of Interior proposed regulations implementing the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act of 2009. The Sessional Federal Committee, chaired by Matt Brown and assisted by Stephanie Carson, Co-Chair of the Legislation and Regulations Committee, put together the SPNHC response. The document succinctly and comprehensively focused on the aspects of the regulations that applied directly to museum collections.

• Representing SPNHC, I was honored to attend a workshop on “FutureProofing Natural History Collections: Creating Sustainable Models for Research Resources.” The meeting was a focused workshop, hosted by the Ecological Society of America (ESA), aimed at providing guidance for the stakeholders in our biological infrastructure in order to promote long-term sustainability. One of the organizers, our former President Chris Norris, wrote an informative account of the issues involved, which were posted in an earlier SPNHC Newsletter.

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SPNHC, continuing its mission in support of natural history collections worldwide, issued:

A letter to Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum of Wales (AC-NMW) - addressing a report of impending cuts of over 40% to the Natural Sciences, including the reduction of collection staff, due to budgetary considerations. SPNHC members will remember the AC-NMW and its dedicated staff from the 2014 SPNHC meetings in Cardiff, Wales. The Director General of the AC-NMW graciously responded by noting his regret for the need to find savings through reductions in posts, but he emphasized that these necessary reductions were being considered in consultation with staff and unions.

A letter to the President of the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) addressing reports of the dismantling of some of their research collections. The letter asked to reconsider the removal of the collections but, if necessary, also offered assistance in finding institutions willing to care for the collections and to provide advice on the proper packing and transfer of specimens. We also encouraged the remaining collections at the Museum of Natural History at ULM to become active members of our professional community. Most other society letters solicited a ULM Dean’s response. We heard personally from the ULM President, who acknowledged the value of the collections to the scientific community, assured us that efforts are underway seeking a new home for the specimens and that currently several institutions in Louisiana, who offered to take the collections are being actively vetted. I continue to encourage an open dialog with ULM and pledge SPNHC’s continued involvement to ensure the success of their plan.

Letters of intent for collaborative support on behalf of SPNHC for five individual grants submitted to the NSF and the IMLS for funding this year. These grants included collection oriented topics involving undergraduate education and workshops, crowdsourcing, stewardship of genetic collections and collection digitization. The SPNHC letters expressed the Society’s intent to collaborate if the grants were funded.

Along with the above actions, a new initiative for the betterment of collections was started this year. To promote equity for collections in regards to fire-code interpretations across the USA, an informal subcommittee (consisting of Robert Waller, John E. Simmons and Paul J. Morris) compiled a list of descriptions of ambiguities and anomalies in fire and code interpretations gleamed from the NHCOLL archives. On 21 September 2016, a summary of these concerns was presented at a meeting of the National Fire Protection Association's task group which is responsible for the NFPA-909 Cultural Resource Properties. The NFPA task group was receptive to this presentation and suggested a dialog with SPNHC. That dialog was started using a few specific and typical cases of fluid collections storage conditions that have been developed by our informal committee.

Lastly, I want to thank all of our current Council members, Committee Chairs and Representatives for their dedicated service, and wholeheartedly wish to thank the Local Organizing Committee who, under the leadership of Kelly Tomajko, worked hard to assure the success of this meeting. I wish you all a great and productive year ahead.

Respectively submitted, Linda Ford

ADDENDUM to the Report of the President:

Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) Update

The BCoN Research Coordination Network convened a meeting in Washington, DC in early January to initiate an assessment of community progress toward the achievement of the goals set forth in the Strategic and Implementation Plan for a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance. The BCoN Advisory Council and participants from that meeting are summarizing meeting discussions and plan to share findings with the community for additional feedback. Representatives of BCoN will also be talking with the community during a forum at the BOTANY 2017 meeting in Fort Worth, during the SPNHC 2017 meeting, and then at other fora

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that will be identified.

An interest of BCoN is the identification of next generation opportunities and challenges — for example, what might come after NIBA? Some participants in the January workshop identified potential opportunities and are now working to develop them into a white paper. The BCoN Advisory Council is also considering how it can help to stimulate the articulation of other next generation ideas.

Earlier this year, members of the BCoN Advisory Council were among the authors of a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. The paper was an outgrowth of a BCoN sponsored meeting in 2016 on the potential for the development of an ISOBANK — a database for isotopic data. The meeting provided the collections community with an opportunity to share lessons learned with the isotope research community, and to identify a strategy and opportunities to integrate isotopic data with other collections data to stimulate new research opportunities for both communities. The PNAS paper is available at http://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/2997.short. This workshop contributed to the NIBA objectives of expanding the stakeholder community and increasing research uses of collections data.

The BCoN Advisory Council membership has changed a bit recently, but still includes representatives of AIBS, SPNHC and NSC Alliance. In the coming months, the Advisory Council plans to invite new members to join the Council to augment existing expertise.

Report of the Treasurer

In 2016, the Society’s total net assets increased to $261,121 from a total of $246,600 the previous year. Liabilities and net assets for 2016 totaled $288,875. Operating income was generated from three sources: membership dues, publication sales, and advertising in the Newsletter. A total of $30,955 in membership dues was received. Sales of our six publications plus royalty payments brought in $8,582. Advertising in the Newsletter generated $4,020 in income. A total of $2,591 in donations was received.

Fifty-five subscribers and 514 individuals, institutional, corporate and student members were active for the year 2016. Of the 602 SPNHC members in 2016, 108 joined for the first time.

Major expenses for the Society in 2016 were $9,450 for annual hosting fees for the SPNHC website plus upgrades to the website database performed in 2015, $9,219 for Collection Forum Vol 29 (2015), a $5,000 loan to the Denver LOC for the SPNHC 2017 annual meeting, $3,758 for the Christine Allen grant and the Fitzgerald Travel grants, $3,520 for the Best Practices Wiki, $2,272 for membership booth accessories and transportation to meetings, $1,416 for three issues of the SPNHC Newsletter, and $1,293 in expenses related to the upcoming Storage book.

Additional expenses include $755 for hotel fees for the SPNHC President to attend the 2016 annual meeting in Berlin, $750 for the sponsorship of annual congressional district visits, $591 for printing extra copies of SPNHC books, and $275 for the annual fee to Cross Ref.

The Treasurer’s Office incurred the following expenses: $5,500 for the 2015 financial review, tax preparation and filing, $3,399 for insurance, $817 in merchant fees, and $150 in annual fees for QuickBooks.

Long-term investment funds were consistent with the market; SPNHC investments saw a market value gain of $3,906 while the money market account earned $3,448 in dividends and interest.

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The CD account earned $91 in interest.

The first part of 2017 has seen good income activity. By April 30, $31,665 has been received from membership dues, including deferred dues paid in 2016. As of April 30, 2017 we have 620 active members, including Life members.

Membership renewals included 20 student, 350 individual, 44 library/subscriptions, 34 institutional and 4 corporate renewals. As of April 30, 137 new members have joined for 2017, of which 30 are student memberships, 8 are institutional, and the remainder are individual. By April 30, 147 members who paid in 2016 had yet to renew for 2017.

Please pay your dues on time.

In the first quarter of 2017 sales of all our publications totaled $2,243. Additionally, by April 30, we received $1,418 in royalties from Copyright Clearance Center. We have received $557 in unrestricted donations and $1,021 in restricted donations. A sincere thank you to all.

Expenses incurred in FY2017 as of April 30 include $11,664 for publishing and printing Collection Forum Vol. 30, $5,500 to Burdette, Smith & Bish for the 2016 Financial Review, $3,960 for the Best Practices Wiki, $975 for fixes to the website, $750 to AIBS for congressional district visits, $502 for online hosting of the Spring 2017 Newsletter, and $500 for membership booth rental at meetings. The Society anticipates expenses related to publications, travel grants, insurance premiums, the Best Practices Wiki, the trade show booth, and 2017 online election.

Please contact the SPNHC Treasurer for further details.

For their help throughout the year, I would like to extend thanks to Linda Ford (Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University), Andy Bentley (University of Kansas), Barbara Thiers (New York Botanical Garden), Cindy Opitz (Museum of Natural History, University of Iowa), Christine Johnson (American Museum of Natural History), and Chris Norris, Susan Butts, and Tim White (Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History). The American Museum of Natural History, Division of Paleontology provided general office support for the Treasurer.

Respectfully submitted, Ruth O’Leary, Treasurer

For the 2016 financial review, please see Appendix 1.

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FY2016 Donations Since May 1, 2016

Anonymous

Tiffany Adrain Rachael Arenstein

Chris Norris Jane O’Donnell

Lisa Palmer Deborah Paul

Julianne Snider

Arnold Suzumoto Barbara Thiers

Janet Waddington Robert Waller Robert Wilson

Wendy Zomlefer University Products

Thank You!

FY2017 Donations As of April 30, 2017

Gretchen Anderson

Carolina Arjona Arevalo Julian Carter

Anita Cholewa Vivien Chua

Kimberly Cook George Dante

Rebecca Desjardins Jennifer Doubt Leslie Freund

Gaylord Lisa Goldberg

Hollinger Metal Edge Rebecca Kaczkowski

Elise LeCompte

Dimitry Lisitsyn Teresa Mayfield

Nicolette Meister Armando Mendez

Christopher Milensky Ann Molineux Pamela Pollini Maggie Reilly Fran Ritchie

Annie Savage Jazmin Sproule Jennifer Taylor

Jacob Van Veldhuizen Mark Wetter

Breann Young

Thank You!

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FY 2016 SPNHC Operating Budget

01 January–31 December 2016

INCOME Projected Realized Variance

(1) Dues @ $20, $45, $55, $75, $350 $28,000 $30,955 $2,955

(2) Life Members @$1,125 $500 $0 ($500)

(3) Publication Sales $5,000 $7,232 $2,232

(4) Collection Forum Page Charges $100 $1,350 $1,250

(5) Mailing List Sales $150 $0 ($150)

(6) Unrestricted Donations $300 $651 $351

(7) Temporarily Restricted Donations $2,000 $1,940 ($60)

(8) Operating Account Interest $4 $8 $4

(9) Advertising in Newsletter $5,000 $4,020 ($980)

(10) Transfer from Future Publication Fund $37,105 $2,197 ($34,908)

TOTAL INCOME $78,159 $48,354 ($29,805)

EXPENSES Projected Realized Variance

(11) Annual Meeting Loan $5,000 $5,000 $0

(12) Archives Committee $125 $0 ($125)

(13) Election Committee $500 $0 ($500)

(14) Executive Contingency Fund $999 $0 ($999)

(15) Membership Committee $2,500 $2,272 ($228)

(16) Publication Committee $34,495 $12,634 ($21,861)

(17) Recognition and Grants Committee $5,250 $3,758 ($1,493)

(18) Treasurer's Office $10,350 $10,216 ($134)

(19) Web Committee $9,300 $9,450 $150

(20) President's Contingency Fund $2,100 $1,505 ($595)

(21) Best Practices Committee $7,540 $3,520 ($4,020)

TOTAL EXPENSES $78,159 $48,354 ($29,805)

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FY 2017 SPNHC Operating Budget

01 January–31 December 2017

(as of April 30, 2017)

INCOME Projected Realized Variance

(1) Dues @ $20, $45, $55, $75, $350 $32,000 $31,665 ($335)

(2) Life Members @$1,125 $500 $0 ($500)

(3) Publication Sales $6,400 $3,661 ($2,739)

(4) Collection Forum Page Charges $750 $0 ($750)

(5) Mailing List Sales $150 $0 ($150)

(6) Unrestricted Donations $700 $557 ($143)

(7) Temporarily Restricted Donations $2,000 $1,021 ($979)

(8) Operating Account Interest $8 $3 ($5)

(9) Advertising in Newsletter $3,200 $1,560 ($1,640)

(10) Repayment of Annual Meeting Loan $5,000 $0 ($5,000)

(11) Transfer from Future Publication Fund $33,275 $0 ($33,275)

TOTAL INCOME $83,983 $38,467 ($45,516)

EXPENSES Projected Realized Variance

(12) Archives Committee $125 $0 ($125)

(13) Election Committee $1,000 $324 ($676)

(14) Executive Contingency Fund $999 $0 ($999)

(15) Membership Committee $2,500 $500 ($2,000)

(16) Publication Committee $49,399 $12,166 ($37,233)

(17) Recognition and Grants Committee $4,000 $192 ($3,808)

(18) Treasurer's Office $11,000 $6,228 ($4,772)

(19) Web Committee $5,000 $975 ($4,025)

(20) President's Contingency Fund $2,500 $750 ($1,750)

(21) Best Practices Committee $7,460 $3,960 ($3,500)

TOTAL EXPENSES $83,983 $25,095 ($58,888)

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New Memberships Received in 2016 Since May 1, 2016

Institutional Members Veronika Hall; Denver Museum of Nature and Science, USA

Regular Members Dorothy Barr

Jaron Boerner-Mercier Jessica Budke

Vanessa Delnavez Laura Dietrich

Lowell Flanders Vicki Funk

Richard Glor Alicia Goode Helen Hardy

Michelle Heider Mike Howe

Elizabeth Johnson Eric Knox

Jennifer Laherty Rick Levy

Allyson Mellone Pierre Radji

Theresa Reilly Douglas Russell

Julio Silva Theresa Smith Nathan Staples

Elizabeth Stormfield

Student Members Anne Blevins

Darrell Brandon Marie-Anne Durocher

Alexandra Fernandes Hall Sarah Jacquet Rachel Jones

Kelly Lubbers Kelsey Rydar

New Memberships Received in 2017 As of April 30, 2017

Institutional Members

Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam, Netherlands San Jose Sate University, CA, USA

Delaware State University, DE, USA The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum, FL, USA

Indiana University, IN, USA German Oceanographic Museum / Deutsches Meeresmuseum, Stalsund, Germany

Australian Tropical Herbarium, Smithfield, Australia

Regular Members John Abbott J Ryan Allen Daniel Ardia Jill Azzolini

Lyndell Bade

Lauryn Benedict Shannon Bennett

Lily Berniker Christy Bills Steffen Bock

Craig Brabant Jonathan Brecko

Leo Bruederle Lisa Buckley Lyndy Bush

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Regular Members (cont.) Amanda Callaghan

Erin Cashion Catherine Cezeaux

Dina Clark Julia Colby

Kimberly Cook Katharine Corneli George Dante, Jr.

Mike Dickison Peter Doucette

Diane Erwin Kathryn Estes-

Smargiassi Heather Farrington

Christina Fidler Jon Fong

Anja Friederichs Sara Fuentes Soriano

Peter Gibbons Tom Gnoske Chris Grinter

Kasey Hamilton Ana Hara

Cricket Harbeck Saskia Harris

Shana Hawrylchak Dean Hendrickson

Amy Henrici

Chelsea Herrod Stephanie Hornbeck

Pamela Horsley Janeen Jones

Pamela Kellar Barbara Kennedy

Lukas Kirschey Alex Kittle

Tracy Klotz Jennifer Kluse

Jan Bolding Kristensen Logan Kursh Scott LaGreca

Daniel Le Alison Leard

Stephanie Leon James Loch

Starlene Loerch Christina Lutz

Joel Martin Mitchell McGlaughlin

Kevin McKinney Jennifer Menken Matthew Miller Eugenie Milroy Angie Morrow

Matthew Mossbrucker Gary Motz

Dirk Neumann

Katie O'Leary Shelley Paine

Lindsay Palaima Christopher Philipp

Nasreen Phillips Stephany Potze Rachel Poutasse Lindsay Powers

Kate Purcell Gregory Rand William Ripley Mari Roberts Andrew Ross Roberto Rozzi

Linsey Sala Lauren Scheinberg Kara Schneiderman Bernhard Schurian

Gregory Skupien Jazmin Sproule

John Swann Christopher Thigpen Angella Thompson

Kat Turk Gregory Wahlert

Alison Wain Amy Weiss

Laura Wilkinson Lindsey Yann

Student Members Maricela Abarca Carolina Arjona

Madelaine Atteberry Joy Bloser

Jacob Bridy Daniel Brothers

Vivien Chua Erica Ely

James Erdmann Lindsey Frederick Christine Haynes

Jacqueline Howard Kaylen Jones

Chauncey Kellar Deborah Kelley-Galin

Megan King Lia Kramer

David Laurencio Jennifer Lenihan

Jessica Lui Kelly Martin Nadje Najar

Conni O'Connor Vincent O'Leary

ShaunAnn Peters Heritiana Ranarivelo

Annie Savage Taylor Soniat

Jennifer Taylor Sean Thackurdeen

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Standing Committee Reports

ARCHIVES COMMITTEE BACKGROUND The Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) houses the archives of 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. PROCEDURE The committee chair acts as liaison between SIA and SPNHC. The committee receives, lists, and transfers material to the Smithsonian Institution Archives when sufficient quantities accumulate. All material that is deposited within a fiscal year (October 1 through September 30) is assigned the same accession number and housed in the same storage box/unit. Some SPNHC archives need to be rehoused in archival materials prior to transfer to SIA. All material that has been received since the last deposit is being held by the committee. CURRENT WORK Although SPNHC is publishing electronically, printed copies of the SPNHC newsletters and Collection Forum are being deposited in SPNHC’s archives. No requests for archived information were received by the chair in the past year. Images from the SPNHC annual meeting in Berlin were provided by Carol Kelloff and Meghann Toner. Material for deposit was received from Ruth O’Leary. As per SIA protocols, SPNHC materials are being prepared for deposit in SIA this fiscal year. COMMITTEE MEMBERS Linda Hollenberg, Co-Chair Carol Kelloff, Co-Chair (incoming) Meghann Toner, Co-Chair (outgoing) Lisa Palmer

BEST PRACTICES

The Best Practices Committee is continuing to add new content to the SPNHC wiki (http://spnhc.biowikifarm.net/wiki).

The committee has recently added content generated at the 2016 JMIH Workshop on Fluid Collections in July, and as a result, a number of new draft pages have been established on the wiki:

Field Collecting

Collecting Techniques

Euthanasia

Filed Notes

Field Preparation

Imaging in the Field

Recordings

Sound Recording

Legislation and Regulations

Permitting

Preparation

Herpetology Specimen Preparation

Ichthyology Specimen Preparation

Collection Management

Loans and Gifts

Fire Safety and Suppression

Training Personnel

Curation

Herpetology Collection Curation

Ichthyology Collection Curation

Digitization and Information Sharing

Data Aggregation

Databasing

Digitization

We will need assistance, not only from Best Practices Committee members working with fluid collections, but from other SPNHC members with this expertise, to review this content and expand many of these topics. Additionally, there may be opportunities to collaborate on editing fluid collections topics together in Denver. Contact Breda Zimkus (bzimkus@oeb.harvard.edu) if you are not currently part of BP Committee but would like to assist in editing any of the above topics remotely or participate in person during the annual meeting.

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In addition to work on fluid collection content, a page on Threatened and Orphaned Collections has been added to the wiki in response to the news that the natural history collections at the University of Louisiana in Monroe may be destroyed. This information is now available for any institution that may be facing loss or destruction of their valuable collections.

As more content is compiled and added to the wiki, we are looking at how to keep pace and the sustainability of the wiki in the long term. Long term plans for wiki sustainability are being discussed, which will likely include more committee involvement and defining a new role of wiki liaison for each committee.

The Citations Subcommittee is continuing to gather citations for museum collection related content, although contributions have been decreasing. Members are researching possible technological solutions to make gathered citations more easily available to SPNHC members. We will update the Committee on the various ways to move forward with this endeavor at the annual meeting in Denver.

Lastly, the Best Practices Committee has welcomed three Members-At-Large (Julian Carter, Miranda Lowe, and Rusty Russell), who have agreed to help with projects relating to best practices and wiki content.

Respectfully submitted, Jessica Cundiff and Breda Zimkus, Best Practices Co-chairs

BYLAWS

The Bylaws Committee is responsible for the continued development of the Society Bylaws, monitoring Society activities to ensure agreement with Bylaws, and for Periodic updates to the Leadership Manual of the Society

Bylaws: Numerous additions and changes have been suggested during the Leadership manual update process. A vote on these changes was conducted through Council with unanimous support and will now be voted on by the membership at the ABM. All members should have received an email outlining all of these changes.

Leadership Manual: Work continues on updating the Leadership Manual for consistency and content, led by committee member Laura Abraczinskas. Committee chairs and officers as well as Executive Council have been engaged to provide updated materials and these are in the process of being incorporated.

Respectfully submitted, Andrew Bentley, Chair

CONFERENCE

Plans are well underway for the 2018 SPNHC meeting, which will be held in conjunction with the Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) in Dunedin, New Zealand, 25 August—2 September, 2018. The Otago Museum will host the meeting, whose theme will be “Collections and Data in an Uncertain World.” Among other topics, sessions will address questions such as, How do we manage collections and data in earthquake-prone regions? What data uncertainty is there between the specimen, the record, the web? What role will natural history collections have in an increasingly challenging world? The program will contain a mix of joint sessions as well as those organized separated by SPNHC and TDWG. Registrants will be able to attend sessions offered by both. I am pleased to report that progress has been made on finding a venue for both the 2019 and 2020 meetings – stay tuned!

CONSERVATION Food in Museums The food subcommittee presented a webinar on the topic for Connecting to Collections Care in November 2016.http://www.connectingtocollections.org/beyond-no-food-or-drink-in-the-gallery/ Fran Ritchie, Bethany Palumbo and Rebecca Newberry built on their previous talks by including advice on storing food based collections and how to use the information to create a Food Management Policy, thanks to Laura Abraczinskas, who graciously shared her new institutional food management policy with the committee for the webinar.

Bethany Palumbo gave a talk at the NatSCA annual meeting in April 2017 on food management best practices.

Ritchie, Palumbo and Newberry published Beyond “No food and drink in the gallery”: Writing a best

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practices document for food management in museums in Collections Forum Vol.30 No.1-2. If you would like to add case studies to the Food Management Wiki, please contact Rebecca Newberry at rnewberry@smm.org.

Resource Display Unit (RDU) The RDU reformatting project plans to rework the existing unit to make it easier to transport and share and to customize versions for areas outside of North America. We are seeking volunteers to help with this complex project. Please contact Gretchen Anderson at andersong@carnegiemnh.org if you can assist the project.

Taxidermy Conservation Stemming from an inquiry to SPNHC by a freelance reporter writing a story in the Washington Post, The Conservation Committee assembled a list of professionals who conserve taxidermy last fall. Please contact Rebecca Newberry at rnewberry@smm.org if you are interested in the list.

Transitions Armando Mendez has regretfully stepped down as Conservation Committee Co-Chair. Thank you for your work and we look forward to continuing to work with you in the future!

Respectfully submitted, Rebecca Newberry and Armando Mendez

ELECTIONS

Elections Online (http://www.electionsonline.us/) was used again exclusively this year. The fee from Elections Online was $324.47. This fee was cheaper than previous years as we have now signed a 4-year contract with Elections Online, giving us a 10% discount for each election.

Positions filled are two Members-at-Large. The successful candidates are:

MEMBER AT LARGE Amanda Lawrence, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, US MEMBER AT LARGE Deborah Paul, Florida State University, Florida, US

There were 14 nominations received from 14 different members. All nominees agreed to stand.

The election started with an email message sent to all members on a ‘voting list’ (provided to Elections Online

based on the Treasurer’s most recent membership list as of April 2017). At the close of the election on May 10th

2017, the total number of returned ballots was 269, or 52.03% of the eligible members – an increase of 14.35% from the previous year (which was 37.68%). The table below outlines the trends over the last 4 elections.

A greater number of votes was achieved than the previous year, due to reminders sent twice during the election period. However, the membership of the SPNHC decreased this year from 544 to 517 (-27).

These results were emailed to the membership and via NHColl. They will also be included in the next SPNHC Newsletter.

This report was submitted for the 2017 Council meeting on May 18, 2017.

Respectfully submitted, Bethany Palumbo

600

500

400

300

Online ballots

200

100

2014

2015

2016

2017

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EMERGING PROFESSIONALS

To replace Stephanie Allen’s spot as SPNHC co-chair, we are seeking a new third co-chair to assist Kari Harris and Katie Anderson. We are seeking specifically an international co-chair and have tentatively filled the spot with MaRiana Di Giacomo. This spot will be confirmed at the EPC committee meeting in Denver.

This year the Emerging Professionals Committee will host the 3rd annual SPNHC Emerging Professionals Luncheon. The luncheon will take place on Wednesday, June 21, from 8am–1pm in the Hopscotch room at The Curtis Denver Hotel. As of May 22, 2017, the luncheon is booked up with at least 50 total participants. Emily Graslie will be the featured speaker and several established professionals from SPNHC will also attend. Emily and the established professionals will be able to meet with individual groups of emerging professionals and discuss the importance of advocating for yourself and your collections and communicating with the general public about natural history collections.

SPNHC t-shirts are still available for sale at www.teespring.com/spnhc-apparel. This is an ongoing campaign that renews every 7 days and shirts are continuously available (even if it says “Available until Thursday!” you can buy a shirt afterwards because it’s a rolling campaign). You can purchase shirts directly from the website and they will be shipped to you. Shirts, hoodies, long-sleeved tees, and stickers are available. The EPC makes a small profit from the sales but they are sold nearly as cheap as we can sell them. To date, 9 products have been sold and the EPC has made a profit of $7.

We are still seeking blog authors. If you would like to publish a blog post on Cracking the Collections, please contact our Blog editor, Katie McComas at kamccomas@gmail.com.

Respectfully submitted, Kari Harris

LEGISLATION AND REGULATIONS

The subcommittees of the Legislation and Regulations Committee have followed up on or have been tracking a number of issues:

NAGOYA PROTOCOL/ABS – During the meeting of the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cancun, Mexico in December 2016, the use of sequence data and release of genomic data into the public domain was heatedly debated. The CBD Executive Secretariat circulated a call on 25 April 2017 inviting relevant stakeholders to nominate experts for the Ad Hoc Technical Expert group. The deadline for submission is the 8 September 2017. Introduction of a global multilateral benefit-sharing system in combination with a regulation and licensing system for digital sequence information would have far-reaching consequences for our community. Formation of a NP/ABS subgroup is recommended. We call for active members and will inform about recent developments on the NP/ABS and hope to discuss next steps in Denver.

USDA/APHIS – A small subcommittee on APHIS phytosanitary and veterinary imports has been assembled, and the members are working on reaching out to APHIS staff to clarify import requirements. The recent incidents which caused the loss of valuable plant types during the phytosanitary clearance process at the Australian border inspection post is followed up. We hope to discuss next steps in Denver, which would help to develop standardized forms or labels which support the declaration. This should be done in harmonization of relevant import regulations, for example in the US, the EU or Australia.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the Conference in Denver this June! We hope you will join us at our fluids workshop on Sunday the 18th, our shipping workshop on Monday the 19th, and the Legs & Regs committee meeting on Tuesday the 20th!

Respectfully submitted, Dirk Neumann and Stephanie Carson, Co-Chairs

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LONG-RANGE PLANNING

The Long Range Planning Committee meeting is responsible for developing, reviewing, and updating the Society's five-year strategic plan, and for presenting the plan to Council for approval. At the 2016 Berlin meeting, the Committee decided to think of the strategic plan as more of a living document that can be revised as needed, rather than embarking on a new strategic planning exercise. Because we are now in the fifth year of our current strategic plan, and because the Society has made significant progress toward achieving many of the short and medium term goals, it is time to consider what if any additional goals should be added to the strategic plan. This will be the main topic of discussion at the upcoming meeting. Through consultation with committee chairs, the document designed to track progress toward the goals stated in the strategic plan has been updated, and will be the starting point for discussions in Denver.

Respectfully submitted,

Barbara Thiers, Chair

MEMBERSHIP

The Membership Committee focuses on ways to promote the Society and retain existing, and attract new, members. We promote SPNHC at conferences by advertising in conference literature and exhibiting the Membership Booth. Please contact Tiffany Adrain (tiffany-adrain@uiowa.edu) if you would like materials to distribute or display at any conferences you attend. You may be eligible for complimentary registration. The next venue for the Membership Booth will be the Geological Society of America meeting in Seattle in October 2017. Thank you to everyone who has helped with display materials in the past year. Thank you, also, to Ann Pinzl for writing Member Profiles for the SPNHC Connection Newsletter. Please contact Ann (apinzl@sbcglobal.net) to nominate yourself or a fellow SPNHC member for a profile feature. The Committee would be happy to hear from anyone with connections in future SPNHC Annual Meeting locations who can help us widen the membership reach of the Society. As always, please encourage your colleagues to join SPNHC and remember to renew your membership on time!

Respectfully submitted,

Tiffany Adrain, Chair

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Committee The Professional Development Committee members experienced some challenges that caused interruptions in our work over the winter and spring. The PDC will still be focused on the defined areas of work and some short-term, mid-term, and long-term projects:

Committee Structure and Tasks

Demo Camp

Workshops

Travel Grants

Wiki and Web

The PDC will have working groups and sub-committees to head up these projects. Jennifer and Jeff will take the lead on re-drafting the Leadership Manual for the PDC. We will ask for reviews from all committee members and this will form the first part of our Wiki page for the SPNHC website. The expected deadline for the PDC Leadership Manual was putt off, but we will resume work on it this fall.

Demo Camp The Demo Camp at the 2017 Denver SPNHC Conference is planned. In addition, Jennifer Strotman, Holly Little, and Deb Paul have come up with a Short Course on Biodiversity Informatics that can augment the Demo Camp and offer more for attendees at next year’s conference in Denver.

Mentorship and Travel Grants Elise LeCompte chairs the sub-committee on Membership and Travel Grants. We have a good batch of awardees looking forward to Denver.

Workshops Jennifer put ou a new survey of the SPNHC membership to look for workshop trends and needs. The results will assist LOCs with workshop topics and help SPNHC to keep tabs on topics that need to be

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repeated on a timely basis or that represent new areas for exploration in a workshop venue.

Wiki and Web Jennifer is doing the preliminary work with the SPNHC Web and Wiki masters on setting up the PDC pages. Anna Monfils and Kari Harris will start working on social media content for the Wiki. The initial work on the Web and Wiki are mid-range, and will get a start after the Leadership Manual section is drafted.

As always, if any member of SPNHC would like to work on any of these projects, please contact Jennifer Strotman or Jeff Stephenson. We value and appreciate your volunteer efforts on behalf of SPNHC and your colleagues. Respectfully submitted, Jeff Stephenson, Chair.

PUBLICATIONS

SERIAL PUBLICATIONS

After 3 years of being Publications Chair for SPNHC, I have decided to step down on August 1, 2017. Submissions should still be emailed to editor@spnhc.org. As much as I enjoy the position and promoting work on natural history collections, I am very involved in other important initiatives and feel that I can no longer bring the energy and time that is needed to fill the Publications Chair position well. By the time this report is presented, I hope to have a replacement. To facilitate fulfilling the duties of the position, there will be discussion in Denver about adding a publications treasurer position to ease the Pub Chair burden and be able to provide the necessary information to SPNHC Treasurer, Ruth O’Leary in a timely fashion. A few goals are to possibly establish a simple system to sell the various (and many) SPNHC publications, as well as facilitate overseas page charge payments via a bank transfer system. These are difficult goals and hopefully they can be achieved with the addition of a publications member who is devoted only to the monies component of the publications committee. The other members editorial team will remain the same and continue their excellent service to publishing high quality articles and book reviews.

Collection Forum Collection Forum Volume 30 will be printed this autumn. We have had some outstanding submissions, and these will soon be published Online First. The editorial team, Matt Brown, Yemisi Dare, Alana Gishlick, and Janet Waddington, have done a great job again in processing submissions. We thank the various reviewers, whose commitment to quality peer review in the collections community is appreciated greatly.

We have a new liaison between Treasurer Ruth O’Leary and Allen Press Pinnacle to assist with member access issues to our online versions of SPNHC Newsletter and Collection Forum, Sara Ketelsen. If you are having access issues, please contact Sara at sketelsen@amnh.org.

At the Denver SPNHC conference, Yemisi Dare and Chris Johnson will hold a workshop on ‘Writing for Successful Journal Publication to Promote Effective Change in Natural History Collections.’ In this workshop, we will discuss how to prepare a manuscript from start to finish with guides and examples of how to create effective graphs, figure plates and tables. We’ll touch a bit on basic data analysis. Participants will be given a topic and some data at the start of the workshop and after each section will be given some time to put this information into the respective manuscript section form (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, graph or table), which will be critiqued at the end of the session.

SPNHC Leaflets Mari Roberts, Editor of SPNHC Leaflets, has made nice style changes to SPNHC leaflets. If you are interested in publishing a piece on natural history collections, please contact Mari at

marialexandriaroberts@gmail.com

SPNHC Connection Ann Pinzel joined the Book Review team with Lynn Jones, and the decision was made to publish the book reviews in SPNHC Connection as we felt there would be more visibility in this publication. It seems to be working quite well.

SPNHC Connection Editor Liath Appleton and Publications Chair Chris Johnson have been discussing a possible new section in the newsletter, which will feature an institution, what their collection strengths are, whom to contact, what their policies are regarding donations, collecting, loans etc. and if their country has legal requirements, how to find and follow those regulations. The idea grew from a submission to Collection Forum that didn’t quite fit the journal specifications, but I felt the information was useful to the

26

broader community.

A reminder: SPNHC Connection is only available digitally to counter rising costs due to the increase in size. Members may access the newsletter through the Collection Forum digital system (“e-CoFo”). Please send SPNHC Connection newsletter submissions to Liath at newsletter@spnhc.org

Past Journal & Newsletter Issues A reminder that past Journal volumes and newsletters, excluding the current edition, will continue to be available at spnhc.org and back Collection Forum volumes from 2014 may also be found online on the Pinnacle Collection Forum website. Because many institutions require that publications by employees be placed in the public forum at some point as a condition for publishing, we are adopting the RoMEO blue self-archiving policy, which states we archive post-print publisher’s version/PDF and will be listed as such. See here for information: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php

BOOKS

Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage The anticipated publication date for the new book Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage, by Lisa Elkin and Chris Norris, Special Publication Editors, is Fall 2017. To take a sneak peek at the chapter abstracts and pre-order your copy. http://resources.conservation-us.org/collection-storage/ Already we have pre-orders for 19 copies. 2017–2018 PUBLICATIONS BUDGET 2017 2018

Collection Forum

CrossRef Annual Fee $275.00 $275.00

CoFo, Online Content Hosting, 1 vol/yr $2,670.00 $2,670.00

CoFo, Publishing Digital, 1vol/yr $8,970.00 $7,055.00

CoFo, Online Content Hosting, 1 vol/yr Carry-over $2,695.56

CoFo, Publishing Digital, 1vol/yr Carry-over $8,968.75

Subtotal $23,579.31 $10,000.00

Newsletter

BrightCopy, Online Content hosting, 2 issues/yr $1,002.00 $1,200.00

Subtotal $1,002.00 $1,200.00

Publications/Managing Editor

Operating budget $1,000.00 $1,000.00

Subtotal $1,000.00 $1,000.00

Publications

Publication printing $300.00 $300.00

Preventive Conservation: Approaches to Collection Storage $40,280.00 $10,000.00

Subtotal $40,580.00 $10,300.00

Sum $66,161.31 $22,500.00

Respectfully submitted, Christine Johnson, Chair

RECOGNITION AND GRANTS

The Recognition and Grants Committee is charged with promoting and reviewing the various awards that the Society can confer in recognition of a member’s service, as well as the Faber Research Grant.

No nominations for awards were received by the chair for this year. I would encourage all to nominate deserving members of our community for recognition.

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No applications were received for the Faber Research Grant. Members are encouraged to apply.

This year a new award, called the Vendor Recognition Award, was instituted. The award is intended to recognize long-term support of the Society and/or the Society’s annual meetings by commercial organizations.

Four awards are being presented at the ABM in Denver – Special Service awards to both LOC’s (Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Denver Botanic Garden) and iDigBio for their continued support of the museum community through best practices, digitization and advocacy as well as the Vendor Recognition Award to Delta Designs, Ltd. For their long-term support of the museum community, the society and SPNHC annual meetings.

Respectfully submitted, Andrew Bentley, Chair

WEB

In March the Web Committee chairs met with the wiki team to work on bringing more of a wiki presence to our website, and we would be happy to have any input from SPNHC members on this subject. The SPNHC jobs/events board has continued to be the most active part of our web presence, and has seen a steady increase in visitors since its creation in 2015. We hope to keep improving in this area with a larger focus on social media and calendar events.

Repspectfully submitted, Liath Appleton and Ann Molineux, Co-chairs

Sessional Committee Reports

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Executive Summary In the past year, the sessional committee has gathered membership information and is currently analysing this data to see if the global make-up of the membership has changed significantly over the past few years in accordance to the strategic goals. This data will be available for review and discussion at the annual meeting in Denver. We are delighted to be returning to North America for this year’s meeting and very excited about the prospect of the 2108 meeting being hosted in Dunedin, New Zealand. This will be the first meeting outside of North America and Europe so the potential for international growth and recognition is immense.

Background As a result of discussions and a report produced in 2011 by members of the SPNHC committee about SPNHC as an International organisation Suzanne Ryder was approached to chair a sessional committee to look at how the organisation could or should become a more international organisation. In 2012 the SPNHC strategy was developed which includes goals to achieve the aim of developing international relations. The sessional Committee has been made up of Suzanne Ryder (Chair, The Natural History Museum, London) with several other collaborators and contributors, notable Skip Skidmore and Mariana Di Giacomo (EPG Liason).

SPNHC Strategic Plan The three goals set out in the strategic plan to work internationally to further the goals of the society are:

Increase value to all our membership

Raise International profile

Attract and retain members from North America With these in mind, the sessional committee have attempted to gather information from professionals in the

cultural sector to inform and advise the SPNHC council on how best to achieve these goals. From the

discussions and questionnaires, several points were raised for consideration.

Collaboration with likeminded groups—bundled membership packages/ MoU’s SPNHC now has agreements with more than 20 organizations to increase and improve collaboration in

areas of common interest through Memoranda of Understanding and affiliations. These groups are global

groups which enhance and contribute to the objectives of SPNHC.

Language/translations It is often thought that to be a truly international society we need to be able to communicate effectively with

members all over the world. Language can be a barrier to this and so some consideration has been given to

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translating works e.g. the newsletter, website or publications into different languages to make them more

accessible. However, there are a variety of free translation tools on-line so would it be worth the time, effort

and cost to this voluntary organisation to do this and if so which languages would be the most appropriate?

For this reason it was concluded that SPNCH would not provide translations.

Annual meetings, SPNHC website and publications The feedback received from members was that all of these three elements where considered to be both

valuable and useful. The meeting are very well set up for networking and a lot of business is focused

around the meetings. The annual meetings being hosted in different places around the world give SPNHC

an excellent platform to raise its international profile. To build on this success and further raise the

international profile and membership we are now planning meetings beyond Europe and North America, the

meeting in 2018 will be in New Zealand.

The SPNHC website is a great source of information further development of this will benefit all. Considering

very practical limitations potential users in 3rd world countries have to overcome may help us add value to

those members and that may mean going to them or providing things in a suitable format to be accessible.

Mentorship & training A number of workshops and demo camps are held at the annual meeting and are a valuable training and

information resource for members.

Nodes and ambassadors for SPNHC The committee has discussed the possibility and advantages of having SPNHC nodes around the world.

This may happen gradually as the society evolves globally. However, it has been proposed that the society

could elect members at large to be ambassadors for a global region or node this will be discussed with

members at the next committee meeting.

Recommendations SPNHC is evolving and now being recognised as a global society so our efforts are proving successful.

The continued wiliness to collaborate with international like-minded groups and individuals should be

encouraged through MoU’s and annual meetings hosted around the globe.

An additional and useful benefit to members would be to enhance the website to map all members onto a world map with contact and expertise details as a useful look up contact list covering the globe. This will need resources and possibly a different web platform to install but may be a useful investment.

Summary The remit of the sessional committee has largely been achieved and I have enjoyed the opportunity to work

on this committee and hopefully the society has benefitted from this committees findings and

recommendations.

Respectfully submitted,

Suzanne Ryder, Chair

US FEDERAL COLLECTIONS

The Sessional Committee on Federal Collections is tasked with identifying ways to improve communication between U.S. Federal agencies and non-Federal repositories regarding the development of policies and procedures for the management of Federal Collections.

The committee is currently working on a positional paper reviewing current challenges and potential solutions in this area. The committee also collaborated with the Legislation and Regulations Committee to draft a response to the proposed Department of Interior regulations under the 2009 Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, and is preparing an invited article on the same topic for Fossil News: The Journal of Avocational Paleontology.

Respectfully submitted, Matthew Brown, Committee Chair

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Representative Reports

ALLIANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS OF CANADA (ANHMC)

The Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada (ANHMC) continues to meet twice annually, once in Ottawa and once in conjunction with the Canadian Museums Association conference. The network’s primary objective is to enhance visibility, recognition and benefit of natural history museums in Canada under the shared goal of connecting people with nature. Through the Federal Biodiversity Information Partnership (FBIP), the ANHMC members are collaborating in the development of integrated computer-based global databanks to be uploaded to Canadensys. The Alliance is also involved in C3, a signature Canada 150 project featured by a journey along Canada’s coasts from Halifax through the NW passage and south to Victoria. Collecting, live coverage, research, programming for all ages and much more are planned. More info on the journey can be found here https://canadac3.ca/en/homepage/ .

Respectfully submitted May 16, 2017 Kelly Sendall, SPNHC Representative to ANHMC

AMERICAN ALLIANCE OF MUSEUMS (AAM)

See Collections Stewardship Professional Network of the American Alliance of Museums (CS-AAM).

AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CONSERVATION OF ARTISTIC AND HISTORIC WORKS (AIC)

No written report available.

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ICHTHYOLOGISTS AND HERPETOLOGISTS (ASIH)

The 2016 ASIH meeting occurred as part of the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH) 6-10 July 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. The JMIH was attended by 1262 people (633 professionals and 629 students) representing 30 nations. On 8 July 2016 the ASIH Ichthyological and Herpetological Collections Committee met. The IHCC meeting was attended by 27 collection personnel (including several student collection assistants) representing at least 22 institutions or collections. Agenda items including Nagoya Protocol, best practices, and updates on NSF funding sources. In 2016 the Board of Governors of ASIH voted in support of the IHCC proposal for a new meritorious award for collection stewardship. The Spiritus Award will be giving annually to an individual in recognition of their contributions and commitment to collection stewardship within the ichthyological and/or herpetological sciences. The inaugural year will be 2017 and will be first awarded to a herpetologist and will alternate between herpetology and ichthyology there-after. On 11 July 2016, the day after the completion of JMIH, iDigBio and the IHCC co-hosted an invitation-only workshop on ichthyology and herpetology best practices with the expressed goal of completing the first draft of the SPNHC Wiki pages as they relate to these collections. Work done during this workshop has been uploaded to the SPNHC Wiki and is available. The workshop was co-chaired by Randal Singer (Florida Museum of Natural History) and Greg Watkins-Colwell (Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History). At the 2016 meeting if IHCC, Mark Sabaj Pérez stepped down as chair of the committee. The new chair of the IHCC is Gregory Watkins-Colwell. Sarah Huber (Virginia Institute of Marine Science) is the new co-chair and James Erdmann (Southeastern Louisiana University) is the new, and first, student co-chair.

Respectfully submitted, Gregory Watkins-Colwell, SPNHC Representative to ASIH

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAMMALOGISTS (ASM)

Since 1972, the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) has had a standing committee called the Systematic Collections Committee as an outgrowth of an ad hoc committee 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 relating to collection administration, curation, and accreditation; (2). maintaining a directory of mammal collections and conducting a survey of existing collections approximately once each decade; and (3). maintaining a list of curatorial standards for mammal collections and managing a collection-accreditation program under the auspices of the Society.

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Once the evaluation process has been completed, the Committee forwards its recommendations for accreditation to the ASM President for review. The President then notifies the collection’s administration of the Committee’s decision. If accreditation is to be conferred, the President sends a letter to that effect as well as an Accreditation Certificate and a copy of the Final Report. Final Reports generally contain both positive observations and recommendations for improvement. The latter rarely comes as a surprise to collection staff. Rather, the Committee works with the staff to articulate areas for which they need greater administrative support. It is hoped that the Committee’s recommendations will highlight the importance of the collection to the mammal research community and help to leverage greater institutional support for the collection.

During the 2016-2017 annual ASM cycle a site visit for re-accreditation of the mammal collection at Texas Tech University was conducted by Robert Dowler and Tom Lee in 6 April 2017. The reaccreditation will be considered by the committee at the annual meeting. Additional collections, primarily in Mexico, are interested in accreditation but travel funds for site visits are a limiting factor.

The committee continued to work on the survey of mammal collections of the western hemisphere and hopes to have a report completed for dissemination and publication in 2017. A poster presented by Jon Dunnum and Committee Chair Robert Dowler will be presented at the annual meeting in Moscow, Idaho. It is hoped that it will not only be informative but might help garner additional entries and updates for the survey report.

Finally, a subcommittee (Jon Dunnum, Marcia Revelez, Burton Lim and Caleb Phillips) was tasked with review of proposed ASM Standards for Genetic Resource Collections similar to the ASM standards for mammal collections. The subcommittee will report on the final document for presentation to the ASM Board of Directors at the annual meeting.

To view the current version of Mammal Collections of the Western Hemisphere, a copy of the Basic Curatorial Standards used by the Committee for accreditation, a list of accredited collections or a link to Cost of Collecting and Preparing Mammal Voucher Specimens for Natural History Collections by Robert D. Bradley, Lisa C. Bradley, Heath J. Garner, and Robert J. Baker (2012), see the Systematic Collections Committee page on the ASM website: http://www.mammalogy.org/committees/systematic-collections#tab3.

Respectfully submitted, Suzanne B. McLaren, SPNHC Representative to ASM

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLANT TAXONOMISTS (ASPT)

I serve as an ex-officio member of the ASPT Systematics Collections Committee. The chair of the committee leads a Curator’s meeting during the annual Society meeting.

One of the committee goals is to promote regional networking of US herbaria, interfacing with participants in the United States Virtual Herbarium, Global Plants Initiative, and the NSF-ADBC program.

Several years ago, we attempted to resurrect an effort to revise a Best Practices document for herbarium operations, first proposed in 1958 and last revised in 1978; this project may finally come to fruition. After an online discussion about recent problems with importing herbarium materials, we were able to receive clarifying information from APHIS-PPQ. Earlier this year, we also worked with the ASPT President to respond to requests for support in the wake of the closing and move of the University of Louisiana-Monroe herbarium (NLU) and the temporary move of the University of Massachusetts herbarium (MASS).

The 2017 Annual meeting of the Society will be held in conjunction with Botany2017 in Fort Worth, Texas on June 24-28, 2017.

Rich Rabeler, SPNHC Representative to ASPT

ASSOCIATION OF REGISTRARS AND COLLECTIONS SPECIALISTS (ARCS)

The Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS) was founded in 2012 with the mission “to represent and promote Registrars and Collections Specialists, nationally and internationally, to educate them in the professional best practices of registration and collections care, and to facilitate communication and networking,” and has grown steadily since. The next biennial ARCS Conference will be in Vancouver, British Columbia, from 03-05 November 2017 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (meeting information is available on the ARCS website). On 25 April 2017, ARCS presented a day-long photography workshop called “Photo Synthesis: What You Need to Know About Photographs” at the Museum of the Moving Image in

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Astoria, New York. Among ARCS other activities are a mentoring program that provides opportunities for registrars and collections specialists to share their knowledge and provide career guidance with new and mid-career collections professionals. Information about these and other ARCS events and programs, along with membership information and news related to the collections care profession, can be found on the ARCS website, https://www.arcsinfo.org/.

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

COLLECTIONS STEWARDSHIP PROFESSIONAL NETWORK (CS-AAM)

The annual meeting of the Registrars Committee of the American Alliance of Museums took place on 09 May 2017, at the American Alliance of Museums meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. At the meeting, the Registrars Committee officially merged with the Art Handling, Collections Care and Preparation Network to become the Collections Stewardship Professional Network (CS-AAM). The new name more accurately reflects the group’s members and purpose and will enable us to better address critical issues in collections management and collections care. The goals of the Collections Stewardship Professional Network include collaborating with peer organizations such as SPNHC. The name of the website has been changed and the listserv is now the CSAAM listserv. The listserv continues to be an important source for news and information about registration and collections care; membership in the CSAAM is not required to participate in the listserv. The CS-AAM continues to work with ARCS (Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists) to provide a mentoring program to create opportunities for registrars and collections specialists to share their knowledge and provide career guidance with new and mid-career collections professionals serving all types of collections.

Respectfully submitted, John E. Simmons, SPNHC Representative to CSAAM

ENTOMOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS NETWORK (ECN)

ECN formed an MOU with SPNHC in late 2016 so this is our first 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. The 2016 annual meeting of the Entomological Collections Network (ECN) was held 23–24 September 2016 in Orlando, Florida, USA, in conjunction with the Entomological Society of America and the International Congress of Entomology. The two-day meeting included 4 symposia (32 talks), 4 contributed talk sessions (18 talks) and a poster session (21 posters). There were 203 members in attendance. There were 28 corporate, organizational and individual sponsors of the meeting and the banquet for a total of $11,715 in funding beyond meeting registrations. At the business meeting held on the first night before the welcome banquet, the ECN leadership reported on the activities of the Network including:

1) that the terms of the current officers will end at the 2017 annual meeting so we would be holding elections in late Spring/early Summer;

2) as part of a coordinated effort to increase our visibility among other like-minded (i.e., collections oriented) organizations, the ECN leadership spent much of 2016 and early 2017 forming formal partnerships and MOUs with those organizations to better communicate on issues that concern all partners and their members and to make it easier to coordinate whole-community responses to issues. The list of MOUs formalized in 2016 include the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN), SPNHC, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), the National Sciences Collections Alliance (NSCA), the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER), and we are the in the process of finalizing one with iDigBio, which has been a partner with ECN for several years in terms of providing logistical support and network access to the meetings and their talks.

3) We are going to being investing our financial overage (75% annually) to help provide year-to-year financial stability and to create the basis for a fund that will help us offer travel scholarships to students

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so they can attend our meetings or another collections related meeting of their choosing.

4) And we reported on the first Entomological Collections Management workshop that was co-sponsored by the ECN and the Entomological Society of America, hosted at the Smithsonian in 17-19 July 2016. The second iteration of the workshop is going to be held this July at the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Field Museum of Natural History, 17-20 July 2017. Thanks to a grant from NSF, we were able to offer financial assistance last year to participants that couldn’t afford to come or that lacked institutional support, and this year we were able to offer 16 participants $1000 travel grants to attend. We are hoping to have our third workshop (and the last one planned in this series at the moment) out west, perhaps at the California Academy of Sciences or one of the University of California campuses with entomological collections.

5) We also had Dr. May Berenbaum, ESA President, speak to the group about the importance of collections to the rest of Entomological Science, and Dr. Reed Beaman from the National Science Foundation came and answered questions about the proposed CSBR program hiatus.

Our next annual meeting is in the process of being planned but is set for 4–5 November 2017 at the Denver Convention Center in Denver, Colorado, USA. The program is still in process and registration for that meeting is open presently but SPNHC members are welcome to follow the program as it develops by checking our website at http://ecnweb.org/default.asp. We look forward to another great meeting and a smooth transition to the new officers in the coming year. To aid in representing ECN to our new partner organizations, I am designating representatives to attend meetings on my behalf, report back to the ECN membership at our meetings, and to speak on behalf of the organization when I am unavailable. I am pleased to report that I have designated Dr. Daniel Young, University of Wisconsin-Madison, as the ECN Representative to SPNHC. He will be attending the SPNHC annual meeting later this month and will be giving a report on the history of ECN and ESA. He will also be our primary point person for a planned ECN symposium or panel-led discussion group at a future SPNHC meeting. We look forward to continued work promoting collections, advocating on behalf of collections, educating young members of both our organizations on best practices for collections, and maintaining a long and mutually beneficial

partnership with SPNHC.

Respectfully submitted, Floyd W. Shockley, ECN President (2015-17)

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA (GSA)

As an associated society of GSA, SPNHC was represented at the 2016 annual meeting which took place Denver, Colorado, September 25-28. There were several sessions sponsored in part by SPNHC. Again special thanks go to Tiffany Adrain, Jessica Cundiff, Talia Karim and others, who ensured that the booth arrived, and helped install, deconstruct, and populate it. The booth is booked for next years’ GSA meeting which will be held in Seattle, Washington, October 22-25. We welcome any help from SPNHC members nearby.

Respectfully submitted Ann Molineux, SPNHC Representative to GSA

GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION FACILITY (GBIF)

SPNHC is an organizational Associate Participant in The Global Biodiversity Information Facility. James Macklin is the GBIF “Head of Delegation” for SPNHC and also currently serves as the Canadian Node Manager.

GBIF (www.gbif.org) will soon release a new version of their data portal which will provide greater functionality and enhanced searching capability. If you have not looked at the country-level pages I encourage you to as they can be very informative. Numerous opportunities are also available for training at various scales as well as competitions for funding to develop new tools and methods for data mobilization, quality control, and dissemination. I encourage all members to get involved and support this critical organization!

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Please let James know if you have ideas for future collaborations between SPNHC and GBIF.

Respectfully submitted by James Macklin

INTEGRATED DIGITIZED BIOCOLLECTIONS (iDigBio)

SPNHC 2017 provides a wonderfully packed schedule of workshops, short courses, symposia, interest group, business meetings and of course, field trips! We did not manage to fit in a Data or Software Carpentry Workshop (we did try). If you’d like to see either of these at SPNHC-TDWG 2018, please get in touch to collaborate. Materials presented in these two-day short courses, give you a chance to try R, SQL, Versioning (via GitHub), the command line, better spreadsheet skills, and tools like Open Refine, in a comfortable, stress-free setting. Try one to find out how these skills can enhance your data and computational literacy, and hence your professional development.

Please be sure to check out the NHC Biodiversity Informatics 101 Short Course (NHC BI 101) offered Sunday, June 18th, organized by Jennifer Strotman (Lead and Concept), Holly Little, and myself. We’re very pleased to say that at least three members of the Entomological Collections Network (ECN) will bring their insights to the NHC BI 101 course and SPNHC 2017. Hoping to see you all in the SPNHC 2017 iDigBio Symposia Advances in Digitization and Innovative Uses for Collections Data on Wednesday, June 21st. There is an exciting session on Best Practices for Integrating Collections into Education brought to you by the Biodiversity Literacy in Undergraduate Education (BLUE) group and others, also on Wednesday.

I’d like to say a special thank you to all SPNHC and TDWG members who are contributing to the new Darwin Core Hour Webinar Series. To everyone at SPNHC and TDWG – this series needs you if it is to be successful in its goal to create streamlined, purposeful communication between the collections community mobilizing data and those developing the standards we need to share biodiversity data. If you have a Darwin Core (DwC) question, or would like to submit an idea for a talk, or perhaps suggest a presenter in the DwC Hour series, please use the DwC Hour Input Form.

A rather obvious trend, many are now working on discovering and documenting what skills and knowledge are needed for the 21st century museum staff and those using collections data in research. From technical assistants, to curators, collection and data managers, from undergrads, to graduate students and current researchers – many are endeavoring to collect skills needs and develop materials resources. A few examples of these efforts include: the currently on-going Strategic Planning for Herbaria Short Course offered by the Society for Herbarium Curators (SHC), the efforts of BLUE, the Biodiversity Informatics Curriculum IG at TDWG, and the work of the ECN to put together resources and a curriculum for entomology collections staff. An exciting time to get involved if this topic interests you!

Lastly, iDigBio looks forward to SPNHC-TDWG 2018. We invite conversation about topics and events well suited to taking advantage of this co-meeting. Please, get-in-touch, find me at SPNHC, or via email.

Respectfully submitted, and in anticipation, Deborah Paul, SPNHC Representative to iDigBio

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF MUSEUMS—COMMITTEE FOR MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL HISTORY (ICOM-NATHIST)

No activity to report.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL REPOSITORIES (ISBER)

In February, SPNHC signed an Affiliate Agreement with The International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) to support complementary and overlapping interests between the two societies.

The ISBER 2017 annual meeting (Due North: Aligning Biobanking Practice with Evolving Evidence and Innovation) was held in Toronto, Canada, from 9-12 May. At this meeting, the ISBER Environmental-Biological Working Group (EBWG), which represents the biodiversity biobanking community (e.g., animal, microbe, plant, environmental samples), presented a workshop entitled: Commercialization and Access and Benefit-Sharing.” This two-part workshop includes sections on public and community perspectives on sample use, as well as private and government perspectives on sample use, including commercialization

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use cases. An EBWG Webinar is also being planned for Fall 2017 that will draw on best practices from human and enviro-bio collaborations.

The ISBER Best Practices for Repositories presents the most effective practices for the management of specimen collections, including evidence-based or consensus-based practices for collection, long-term storage, retrieval and distribution of specimens. The ISBER Best Practices are periodically reviewed and revised to reflect advances in research and technology. The process to update the Best Practices guidelines and publish the 4th edition is being led by Editor-in-Chief Lori Campbell. Members of the EBWG are currently reviewing the Legal and Ethical Issues for Biospecimens section to ensure that issues concerning non-human biobanks are included.

Respectfully submitted, Breda M. Zimkus, SPNHC Representative to ISBER

NATURAL SCIENCES COLLECTIONS ASSOCIATION (NatSCA)

No written report available.

NATURAL SCIENCE COLLECTIONS ALLIANCE (NSC Alliance)

The NSC Alliance has continued to work in recent months to represent the interests of natural science collections to policymakers and institutional administrators. NSC Alliance has participated in efforts to communicate community interests to the Trump Administration and members of Congress, for example. Representatives of an NSC Alliance member institution recently met with several members of Congress to express concerns about research funding and proposals for tax reform that could limit the deductibility of donations to museums and other non-profit organizations. Representatives of NSC Alliance institutions also participated in the recent Biological and Ecological Sciences Coalition Congressional District Visits day.

NSC Alliance also provided comments to the Department of the Interior on proposed changes to paleontological research permits. Additionally, in January, NSC Alliance provided supportive comments to an OSTP proposal for a national soil biodiversity initiative. The comments, in part, encouraged the initiative to partner with and leverage other, existing biodiversity initiatives and investments.

In response to the announcement of the closing of the University of Louisiana Monroe botany and ichthyology collections, the NSC Alliance participated in community wide advocacy efforts on behalf of the collection. NSC Alliance helped garner media coverage about the need for collections support in the Washington Post and in Science magazine. A letter was also sent to UL-Monroe administration. The letter included an offer to help work with the institution to identify a new home for the collections. UL-Monroe administration responded that they were working with regional collections to insure a safe transition for these valuable collections.

NSC Alliance also provided testimony to Congress in support of increased fiscal year 2018 funding for biodiversity and collections-related programs at the National Science Foundation, as well as at the Smithsonian and across the Department of the Interior.

NSC Alliance president Joe Cook has worked with SPNHC and iDigBio to help plan the Director’s Summit that will occur in conjunction with the 2017 SPNHC conference. The NSC Alliance Board of Director’s will also meet in Denver just prior to the Director’s Summit meeting.

NSC Alliance continues to work with SPNHC and AIBS as part of the Biodiversity Collections Network.

Respectfully submitted by Robert Gropp

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY (PS)

The 2015 meeting of The Paleontological Society (PS) was held during the Geological Society of America (GSA) meeting in Baltimore, Maryland November 1-4. Technical sessions co-sponsored by PS and SPNHC, included a session on “Specimen-Based Research and the Reality of Paleontological Resource, Specimen and Data Management: Strengthening Partnerships among Federal Land Managers, Repositories, and Researchers” and two sessions on “Using Digitized Data in Geological and Paleontological Research”. In conjunction with these sessions, a Collections Happy Hour was organized by STEPPE, SPNHC, and iDigBio to connect colleagues working in geological and paleontological collections.

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The next meeting of The Paleontological Society will be held during the Geological Society of America (GSA) meeting in Denver, Colorado September 25-28, 2016.

For more information on The Paleontological Society go to: http://www.paleosoc.org/

Respectfully submitted, Jessica Cundiff, SPNHC Representative to PS

SCIENTIFIC COLLECTIONS INTERNATIONAL (SciColl)

Nothing to report.

SMALL COLLECTIONS NETWORK (SCNet)

SCNet has been active in recruiting, retaining and supporting small collections in the last year. The SCNet webinars (co-sponsored by iDigBio) continue to garner interest. This year SCNet partnered with the iDigBio Education and Outreach Working Group and Biodiversity Literacy for

Undergraduate Education (BLUE) to cover topics related to educational resources, initiatives, and

materials that integrate collections-based data into the undergraduate and k-12 curriculum (recorded webinars can be found on the SCNet webpage: http://smallcollections.net/). SCNet’s webinar series will continue in fall 2017. The theme is in development.

SCNet represented the interests of small collections at a recent iDigBio workshop entitled Resources

for Collections-Based Undergraduate Education conducted at the University of Florida in Gainesville,

Florida, on May 24-25, 2017. The workshop was jointly sponsored by iDigBio Education and Outreach

Working Group, BLUE, Kurator, AIM-UP!, Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis

(QUBES), and the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN). The workshop was a kick-off meeting for a

QUBES Faculty Mentoring Network (FMN) focused on implementing and optimizing collections-based

undergraduate modules. The goal of the workshop was to bring FMN participants together for two days to

receive training on existing collections-based modules developed by AIM-UP! and BLUE as well as to

further develop, optimize, and extend these modules to fit with different courses and students.

SCNet is also collaborating with the Natural Science Collections Alliance (NSCA) and BCoN

efforts to ensure the continued involvement of small collections within the mainstream of the

natural history collections community. SCNet was represented at the recent Biodiversity

Collections Network Meeting: Assessment of NIBA Goals and Future Research Opportunities.

Objectives for this meeting included evaluating our national progress toward the NIBA goals and

identifying future needs and opportunities to ensure that digitization efforts are sustained and

leveraged for future research and education.

In conjunction with iDigBio and SEINet, SCNet has also expanded its digital data mobilization efforts by expanding the nodes within the North American Network of Small Herbaria (http://nansh.org/portal/) to include a variety of small herbaria from academic institutions and biological field stations. In collaboration with iDigBio and Arizona State University, we have also launched the new Consortium of Small Vertebrate Collections web site (http://csvcoll.org/portal/), a Symbiota-driven network that supports the mobilization of digital specimen data from vertebrate collections. SCNet has representatives on the SEINet Advisory Council.

SCNet has built a strong relationship with the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS). There is now a OBFS/iDigBio/SCNet working and interest group focused on collections digitization and collections education.

iDigBio, and the Society of Herbarium Curators have sponsored a small collections symposium at SPNHC 2017 titled, “Best Practices for Integrating Collections into Education:.” The symposium was

developed with the iDigBIO Education and Outreach Working Group, BCoN, SCNet and NSCA and includes 14 invited talks.

Looking ahead to 2018, SCNet is interested in hearing from the community about ongoing needs and how the network can help advocate for and facilitate involvement of small collection.

Respectfully submitted, Anna Monfils

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SOCIETY OF HERBARIUM CURATORS (SHC)

The Society focuses on promoting the importance of herbaria in teaching, research, and service to the community at large. Members are active in the continued development of regional and/or state-level consortia and are participating in both regional efforts and the US Virtual Herbarium project.

I am currently finishing a 3-year term as a Member-at-Large on the Executive Board of SHC. I worked with the SHC President and chair of the Herbarium Assistance Committee to compose a letter on behalf of the Society responding to the news of the closing and move of the University of Louisiana-Monroe herbarium (NLU). I also served on the ad hoc Constitution and Bylaws Review Committee for the Society.

The major event for this year will be a half-day symposium on herbarium strategic planning to be held immediately following the Botany2017 meeting.

The 2017 Annual meeting of the Society will be held in conjunction with Botany2017 in Fort Worth, Texas on June 24-28, 2017.

Rich Rabeler, SPNHC Representative to SHC

SOCIETY OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY (SVP)

The 76th Annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology was hosted 26–29 October in Salt Lake City, and was attended by numerous SPNHC members. The annual Preparators Session focuses on topics related to paleontological collections conservation and care, and an iDigBio organized townhall meeting introduced attendees to digitization activities and ADBC opportunities. SPNHC was represented at the SVP Business and Federal Paleontology Committee meetings. The 2017 meeting is planned for 23–26 August in Calgary, Alberta.

The SVP wishes to remind SPNHC members that it offers several awards and grants that might have relevance to those interested in paleontology. These include grants [http://vertpaleo.org/the-Society/Awards.aspx] to promote student research and fieldwork, like the Estes, Patterson, and Wood awards. The Jackson Student Travel Grant and Scientists from Economically Developing Nations grant both help support travel to the SVP annual meeting. The Hix Preparators Grant is awarded to advance fossil research, standards, and training in preparation and collections disciplines. Not all of these awards limit eligibility to current members of SVP, check the requirements carefully.

Respectfully submitted, Matthew Brown, SPNHC Representative to SVP

TAXONOMIC DATABASES WORKING GROUP (TDWG)

The 2016 annual meeting of the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) was held in Santa Clara de San Carlos, Costa Rica in early December. The theme of the meeting was "Standards Supporting Innovation in Biodiversity Research and Conservation" and an archive of the meeting website, which includes the program and links to the abstracts can be found at: http://www.tdwg.org/conference2016/ Recordings of key symposia were made by iDigBio and are available at: https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/TDWG_2016_Annual_Conference

Over the past year TDWG has continued to update its infrastructure including our wiki and a new GitHub repository. The TDWG membership approved an updated governance to address issues that come with being a successful and growing international body. TDWG also ratified a new process for updating and maintaining its standards with guidelines for better documentation including more detailed definitions and examples to aid users in implementation. If you are interested in biodiversity standards , I would urge you to sign up for the TDWG-content mailing list as this is where the core discussion on standards takes place.

As I continue to stress: “the standards being evaluated by TDWG, and the applications that implement them,

have a direct impact on many SPNHC members involved with specimen data capture and curation.” To foster this relationship, and as the new Deputy Chair of TDWG, I am excited to announce that TDWG and SPNHC will have our first joint meeting to be held next year (August, 2018) at the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand! The theme will be “Collections & Data in an Unstable World.” See: http://otagomuseum.nz/blog/dunedin-set-to-welcome-2018-spnhc-conference/

I am also excited to announce the that the 2017 meeting will be hosted by my colleagues and I in Ottawa, Canada from October 1st to 6th with the theme “Data Integration in a Big Data Universe: Associating Occurrences with Genes, Phenotypes, and Environments.” Please join us!

Respectfully submitted, James Macklin

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Appendix 1

ACCOUNTANT’S REVIEW REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMETNS

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Appendix 2

Society for the Preservation of

Natural History Collections Bylaws

(as revised and approved 1994, 2011, 2017)

ARTICLE I. NAME

The name of the organization shall be the Society for the Preservation of Natural History

Collections, hereafter referred to as the Society.

ARTICLE II. NATURE

The Society is a multidisciplinary organization, including persons within the fields of anthropology,

botany, geology, paleontology, zoology, and others who are interested in the management,

conservation and preservation of natural history collections. Natural history collections comprise

specimens, and supporting documentation, such as audio-visual materials, labels, library materials,

field data, and similar archives as well as digital record thereof. Preservation refers to any direct or

indirect activity providing continued and improved management and care of these collections and

supporting documentation.

ARTICLE III. PURPOSE

The purpose of the Society shall be:

a) to provide for and maintain an international association of persons who study, care for,

work with, or are interested in natural history collections;

b) to encourage studies about the essential requirements for preservation, management,

storage, research, and display of natural history collections;

c) to publish a journal and newsletter as well as encourage the dissemination of information

about natural history collections in journals, bulletins, proceedings, and wherever such

information is appropriate; and

d) to hold annual meetings and encourage conferences, symposia, workshops, and other

meetings about natural history collections in order to facilitate exchanges of ideas and

information.

ARTICLE IV. MEMBERSHIP

Section 1.

Classes of Members. The Society shall consist primarily of seven classes of membership, namely,

Regular, Student, Library/Subscription, Institutional/Associate, Corporate/Commercial, Life

Members, and Honorary Members (bestowed). Other categories of membership can be added or

removed as needed by the Society, with approval of a majority of the Council Members. Unless

otherwise stated, membership is by way of application.

Section 2.

Regular, Student, and Life Members. Any individual interested in or concerned about natural

history collections is eligible to apply for Membership. Regular Members shall be eligible to vote at

Business Meetings of the general membership, vote for Council Members on Society ballots, hold

office in the Society, and receive Society publications.

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Student Members shall enjoy the same rights and privileges as Regular Members. Student

membership is available to individuals enrolled in a course of study leading to a degree.

Life Members have elected to pre-pay their membership in the Society in perpetuity and shall enjoy

the same privileges as Regular Members.

Section 3.

Library/Subscription Members. University and Institutional libraries shall be eligible to join the

Society as Library/Subscription Members. Such Members shall receive only the publications of the

Society and they shall not be entitled to voting privileges.

Section 4.

Corporate/Commercial. Government departments, corporations, private institutions, and others shall

be eligible to join the Society in this class. Corporate/Commercial Members shall receive the

publications of the Society, and may appoint a delegate to attend Business Meetings of the general

membership. Corporate/Commercial Members, through their delegate, may vote at Business

Meetings of the general membership and vote for Council Members on Society ballots. Delegates

may not hold office in the Society.

Section 5.

Honorary Members. Council may elect Honorary Members in recognition of outstanding

contributions to natural history collections or to the Society. Honorary Members have all the rights

and privileges of Regular Members.

Section 6.

Dues and Assessments. Council shall set annual dues and special assessments to the members

according to the needs of the Society. The membership year shall be the calendar year, and dues

shall be payable in advance. Honorary Members shall not be billed for annual dues or other

assessments. A member who has not paid annual dues by the 15th day of February will be expected

to pay a surcharge for handling and expenses, if subsequent billings and special mailings are

necessary. Failure to pay dues will result in loss of membership, but membership may be reinstated

for the years that dues are paid.

Section 7.

Removal of Membership. Any member who conducts activities counter to the objectives of the

Society and in a manner viewed as unacceptable by members of the Council, may have his/her

membership revoked by two-thirds vote of the Council. Reinstatement may be provided by a simple

majority vote of the Council members after supporting information has been presented.

Section 8.

Voluntary Membership Withdrawal. Any member may voluntarily withdraw from membership by

delivering a written resignation to the President.

ARTICLE V. MEETINGS

Section 1.

Annual Business Meeting. The Society membership shall meet annually or at such place and time

as the Council shall resolve. A Council Meeting of officers, committee chairs, society

representatives and Members-at-large, and a Business Meeting of the general membership, shall be

held during the annual meeting of the general membership. The general membership can request

that Council call special meetings of the Society by submitting a written requisition signed by at

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least 20% of the voting members.

Section 2.

Conduct of Business. Business of the Society shall be transacted at Annual or Special Business

Meetings of the general membership. Conduct of the meeting shall adhere to “Robert’s Rules of

Order” in all cases to which they are applicable, and in which they are not inconsistent with the

bylaws or other rules adopted by the Society. Every resolution shall be determined by a majority of

voting members present, unless specifically provided by statute or these Bylaws.

Section 3.

Notice of Meetings. Members shall be given written notice of Annual or Special Business Meetings

of the general membership by mailing to each member a notice stating the place, day, and hour of

the meeting and, in case of a special meeting, the purpose for which the meeting is called, and give

sufficient information to members about such meetings to allow them to form a reasoned judgment

on any decision to be taken. Notice of Special Business Meetings of the general membership shall

be mailed not less than ten days before the date of the meeting. Written notice of the next Annual

Business Meeting of the general membership is to be given no later than six days before the date of

the meeting.

Section 4.

Quorum. A quorum for transaction of business at Business Meetings of the general membership

shall be voting members representing not less than 5% of the total number of voting members in

good standing.

Section 5.

Voting and Representation. Each Regular, Student, Honorary, Life Member, and

Corporate/Commercial delegate in good standing and present shall be entitled to one vote on each

issue at Business Meetings of the general membership.

ARTICLE VI. OFFICERS

Section 1.

Executive Officers. The executive officers shall be the President, the Past-President, the President-

Elect, the Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Managing Editor of the Society’s publications.

Executive officers are required to be Regular, Honorary or Life Members in good standing.

Section 2.

Presidential Officers. The President shall be the chief executive officer of the Society, shall preside

at meetings of Council and Business Meetings of the general membership, shall be responsible for

executing policies determined by Council, shall act as spokesperson for the Society, and shall see

that all orders and resolutions of Council are carried into effect.

The Past-President and the President-Elect shall assist the President, shall be members of Council,

and shall substitute for the President when necessary. The President-Elect shall be elected by a

plurality of votes cast by voting members of the Society.

Section 3.

The Secretary. The Secretary shall assist the President, shall answer all general correspondence

directed to the Society, and shall be responsible for the minutes of all meetings of Council and the

Business Meeting of the general membership. The Secretary shall be elected by a plurality of votes

cast by the voting members of the Society.

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Section 4.

The Treasurer. The Treasurer shall be responsible for all monies and valuable effects in the name

and to the credit of the Society, for full and accurate accounting of receipts and disbursements in

books belonging to the Society, and for maintaining a current list of members. The Treasurer shall

have signatory powers and shall disburse the funds of the Society as may be ordered by Council.

The Treasurer shall render to the President and Council at the Annual Business Meetings of the

general membership, or when Council so requires, an account of the financial transactions and

status of the Society. The Treasurer shall be appointed by the President with the approval of a

majority of the Council Members.

Section 5.

The Managing Editor of the Society’s Journal. The Managing Editor of the Society’s publications

shall be responsible for obtaining reviews, selecting and editing copy, layout, printing, distribution,

and any other functions necessary to get material to the members in a timely fashion. The Managing

Editor shall be appointed by the President with the approval of a majority of the Council Members.

Section 6.

Nomination of Officers. A slate of candidates for office shall be prepared annually by an Elections

Committee appointed by Council. Candidates may be proposed in writing by Regular, Student, Life

or Honorary Members in good standing. The committee shall present a slate with a minimum of one

name for each position and with due regard to the proposals received. Elections of officers shall be

carried out prior to the Annual Business Meeting of the general membership, and the officers

elected will take office at that meeting. Both the ballot and the responding votes of the entitled

members shall be transmitted via appropriate communications media approved by Council. Regular,

Student, Honorary, and Life Members and delegates of Corporate/Commercial Members may vote

for officers. The President shall be responsible for overseeing the elections and communicating the

results of the election.

Section 7.

Vacancies. Should the office of the President become vacant, the President-Elect shall become

President. The President-Elect will complete the term of the President as well as the regular term of

President for which the individual was elected.

Should the office of President-Elect become vacant, Council shall by majority vote elect a Council

Member to serve in an interim capacity until a replacement can be elected by the general

membership, thus the following election may include candidates for the office of President-Elect

and President.

Should the office of Past-President become vacant, it will not be filled.

Should the office of Secretary become vacant, the President shall appoint a Regular, Honorary or

Life Member in good standing to serve as interim Secretary with the approval of a majority of the

Council Members, until a replacement can be elected.

Should the office of Treasurer or Managing Editor become vacant, the President shall appoint new

officers with the approval of a majority of the Council Members.

Section 8.

Removal from Office. An officer who is found to carry out the duties of office in a manner counter

to the interests of the Society may be removed from office by a secret ballot vote expressing a

consensus of two-thirds of all Council Members, or by a majority vote of the membership taken at

an Annual Business Meeting of the general membership or any special meeting of the membership

called for that purpose.

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Section 9.

Term of Service of Officers. Each presidential office shall be filled by the same individual for no

more than a two-year term, except when the President-Elect must prematurely assume the office of

President. The Secretary shall be elected for a two-year term, repeatable consecutively unlimited

times. The Treasurer and the Managing Editor shall be appointed for a two-year term, repeatable

consecutively unlimited times.

ARTICLE VII. COUNCIL

Section 1.

Council. The Society’s affairs shall be conducted through a Council consisting of the following

members: the Executive Officers plus six Members-at-large. All members of Council shall be

entitled to one vote each. All members of Council will act without remuneration.

Section 2.

Quorum. A quorum of Council shall consist of two-thirds of the Council Members.

Section 3.

Meetings. Council shall meet at the Annual Meeting of the general membership and at other times

and places as it deems necessary. Council decisions are determined by a simple majority of voting

Council Members present. When all Council Members consent, a Council Member may be deemed

to be in attendance when communications equipment can be used to allow all persons participating

in the meeting to hear all other participants.

Between regular meetings of Council the President or, on request, the Secretary, shall send to each

Council Member pertinent information about matters of concern. Council may discuss and vote via

appropriate communications medium on matters deemed by the President to require immediate

action.

Section 4.

Election of Members-at-large. The Members-at-large shall be elected by a simple plurality of votes

of the voting members of the Society. All vacancies in Member-at-large positions shall be filled on

an interim basis by Presidential appointment of a Regular, Student, Honorary or Life Member in

good standing.

Section 5.

Nomination of Members-at-large. Candidates for Member-at-large positions shall consist of

Regular, Student, Honorary or Life Members in good standing. Elections shall be carried out by the

same procedure as for the election of officers. The members that are selected will take office at the

Annual Business Meeting of the general membership following the election.

Section 6.

Term of Office. Each year, two Members-at-large shall be elected for a three-year term.

Section 7.

Removal from Office. A Member-at-large who is found to carry out the duties of office in a manner

counter to the interests of the Society may be removed from office by a secret ballot vote expressing

a consensus of two-thirds of all Council Members, or by a majority vote of the membership taken at

the Annual Business Meeting of the general membership or any special meeting of the membership

called for that purpose.

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Section 8.

Execution of Documents. Contracts, documents, or instruments in writing requiring the signature of

the Society shall be signed by the President or the Treasurer. The Council may by resolution,

appoint an officer or officers, on behalf of the Society, to sign specific contracts, documents, and

instruments in writing.

ARTICLE VIII. COMMITTEES

Section 1.

Committees Appointed by Council. Council may appoint Standing Committees for special purposes

and designate their duties and powers in the resolution of appointment. Such resolutions must be

adopted by a majority of the Council Members. The chair positions and members of Standing

Committees are appointed on an annual basis by the President. Unless individual exceptions are

approved by a majority of the Council Members, only members in good standing are permitted to

serve on committees of the Society.

Section 2.

Committees Appointed by the President. The President may appoint Sessional Committees and

designate function, chairpersons, and members. Unless reappointed by the incoming President, such

Sessional Committees shall cease to function upon the conclusion of the term of the President who

appointed them.

ARTICLE IX. FISCAL YEAR

Section 1.

The fiscal year of the Society shall be the calendar year commencing on the first day of January and

ending on the 31st day of the following December.

Section 2.

Every year Council shall appoint an external auditor to audit the accounts of the Society.

Section 3.

The audited accounts will be made available to Council at least thirty days prior to the Annual

Business Meeting of the general membership.

ARTICLE X. AMENDMENTS

On resolution by majority of the Council, or by written proposal signed by not less than two-thirds

of the members in good standing, these Bylaws may be amended or repealed by a simple majority

vote of the members in good standing at the Annual Business Meeting of the general membership.

Written notice of the substance of the proposed amendment is to be sent to all members not less

than thirty days prior to the time at which it shall be submitted to a vote. Changes in the Bylaws

shall go into effect following their adoption at the Annual Business Meeting of the general

membership.

ARTICLE XI. SEAL

Section 1.

The Society shall have an official seal which shall contain the words “Society for the Preservation

of Natural History Collections-1986”.

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Section 2.

The Seal shall be placed in the custody of the Treasurer or other Executive Officer as designated by

the President.

ARTICLE XII. DISSOLUTION OF SOCIETY.

Any proposal for the dissolution of the Society must be sent to each member not less than ninety

days prior to the vote. A decision in favor of dissolution requires a two-thirds vote of the total

voting membership.

Upon the dissolution of the Society, assets shall be distributed for one or more exempt purposes

within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or corresponding section of

any future Federal tax code, or shall be distributed to the Federal government, or to a state or local

government, for a public purpose.