Hello Museum-Lers,
We'd love your feedback, suggestions, comments, questions, and all on the
notice below. Please feel free to comment on the blog (
nsfadbc.wordpress.com), on this list, or to me directly. Many thanks. -
Dave
Three weeks ago we announced that individuals from a number of institutions
across the United States got together in Boulder, Colorado, to discuss how
the biological and informatics communities might go about responding to the
Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections (ADBC) solicitation from
NSF. For many, this solicitation represents a once in a lifetime opportunity
to tackle, in a coordinated manner, a national leadership challenge. If we
can work together effectively, we can make significant inroads towards
digitizing all biological specimens and data, both recent and
paleontological, in collections around the United States.
When the meeting in Boulder concluded, it was agreed by all participants
that high levels of transparency, communication, and involvement by the
community were both needed and expected in the development of any and all
HUB proposals. Since then, many of us have come to feel that these levels
have not been addressed in a meaningful way and the resulting silence over
the last three weeks has become a liability to the community.
We believe that it is vital for able members of the community to step up and
move the process forward and to keep the broad community abreast of
developments. To wait to begin the processes of community organization and
communication after all of the awards are announced would be waste the first
six months to one year of the HUB's limited time. Therefore, it is critical
that the community begin to come together now to support the success of the
HUB, regardless of who is selected to lead.
In this spirit, we’d like to announce that as the end result of many
discussions over the last couple of weeks, a proposal for a HUB is going
forward with CU Boulder as the lead institution and with one of us
(Guralnick) as the lead Principal Investigator. As yet no one is bound to
remain in this collaboration, nor are we certain that others will not join,
but there was broad support from Yale, University of Kansas, Berkeley, the
Field Museum, University of New Mexico, Tulane, and Harvard for this HUB
arrangement.
No doubt there are others of you considering submitting HUB proposals, and
if so we’d like to hear from you via this blog. Why is this? The simple
answer is that we firmly believe that regardless of who finally obtains
funding from NSF, more feedback from the community will lead to a better
HUB. This blog was started to further that discussion.
Some of the things we want to know from members of the broad community:
- What do you want a Home Uniting Biocollections (HUB) to do?
- How might we start that process now?
- What kinds of things will help you the most, whether you are planning
to submit a TCN or not?
Of course, we have our ideas (and we'll want to share them), but there is a
chance for us to begin syncing up now as opposed to later.
As we move forward, we'll be using the blog forum here, listservers, and the
NSF wiki, to engage you and ask questions. It is our belief that community
participation now will pay big dividends when this process actually begins,
no matter who ends up leading the HUB. We hope that you, individuals and
groups from all biocollections, will take the time to comment and provide
input.
Signed,
Rob Guralnick, University of Colorado
Christopher Norris, Yale University/SPNHC
David Bloom, VertNet
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