Participants in a focus group, held at the National Evolutionary 
Synthesis Center on 5-7 February 2010, drafted an outline for the 
digitization and web mobilization of data and images associated with 
U.S. biological collections. Input from the community is requested as 
this plan develops to ensure that it builds appropriately on existing 
projects and reflects the missions and needs of the nation's diverse 
biological collections.

Please review the outline at 
<http://digbiocol.wordpress.com/>http://digbiocol.wordpress.com/ 
Feedback can be made on the blog post or send your comments to 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] 
A letter from the focus group is below.

Thank you in advance,

Linda S. Ford, Ph.D.
Director, Collections Operations
Museum of Comparative Zoology
Harvard University
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138   USA

------------
Dear Colleague:

  In response to the Report from the Interagency Working Group on 
Scientific Collections, federal agencies are becoming more aware that 
our nation's biological collections hold critical information that 
will inform research on issues such as climate change, biodiversity 
loss, invasive species and other national priority environmental
issues. We see language in federal budget requests for increased 
support to collections in order to meet the challenge and increase 
the value of these collections.   A multi-year, multi-million dollar 
effort could become available to digitize the nation's biological 
collections.  Toward that end, we are preparing a strategic plan for a
10-year national effort to digitize and mobilize images and data 
associated with biological research collections is being developed. 
You can view the plan at http://digbiocol.wordpress.com/.

This plan requires broad support and input from the collections 
community and a diversity of stakeholders. The responses to the plan, 
collected through email and blog commentary will be used in future 
meetings to complete a strategic plan.

Community feedback on the initiative outlined here is critical. 
Feedback can be made on the blog post 
(http://digbiocol.wordpress.com/) or via email (to 
[log in to unmask]).

Specific feedback is needed in areas such as:

*         support for the proposed model, suggestions for revision
*         ideas regarding the three-tiered approach suggested here
*         priorities for collection digitization
*         ways to maximize collaboration across institutions and 
federal agencies, and at the international level.

This feedback will be aggregated and provided to participants in 
future planning sessions that will develop a final strategic plan. 
Thanks in advance for taking the time to contribute to this very 
important initiative.
_______________________________________________
Wg-digitization mailing list
[log in to unmask]
https://lists.nescent.org/mailman/listinfo/wg-digitization

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