Association Affairs: Pacific Science Association

Activities

PSA co-sponsors meeting on “Biological Collections Digitization in the Pacific”

PSA co-sponsored a five-day international workshop on “Biological Collections Digitization in the Pacific” targeted to natural history collections personnel in the Pacific region. The meeting was organized by Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), and other co-sponsors included The Bishop Museum, East-West Center, and University of Hawai‘i. The meetings were held at both the East-West Center and Bishop Museum in Honolulu from 24 to 28 March 2014.

The workshop was attended by 57 representatives from Hawai‘i, Guam, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, and the US mainland, and is part of a continuing series of iDig-Bio-sponsored workshops focused on organizing, launching, maintaining, and enhancing biological collections digitization programs. The primary goals of the workshop were to enhance international collaboration and sharing regarding biological collections digitization in the South Pacific, and to prepare participants with the necessary skills and knowledge to launch, manage, and sustain a biodiversity collections digitization program individually through collaboration with an existing Thematic Collections Network (TCN), as a Partner with an Existing Network (PEN), through direct collaboration with iDigBio, or through collaboration with other collections and museums within the region.

The workshop included collections managers, curators, directors, digitization specialists, biodiversity informatics managers, and related collections staff. A major focus of the workshop was to encourage national and international collaboration and sharing, and to that end included representatives from the United States and its territories (Guam), as well as Australia, Fiji, Palau, and Papua New Guinea. The workshop focused on common and unique practices across a variety of preparations and collection types, including vascular and non-vascular plants, fungi, arthropods, vertebrates, and paleobiology.

Workshop content and discussion topics included the following:

• • An overview of Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio), the National Science Foundation’s national resource for Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections

• • A round-up of digitization activities in the Pacific

• • The future of NSF funding and other funding opportunities to support digitization programs

• • Activities of Global Biodiversity Information Facility’s (GBIF) international task force for collections digitization

• • Issues in organizing and launching a collections digitization program

• • A detailed overview of the clusters of essential digitization tasks

• • Detailed parameters for designing and developing effective digitization workflows and protocols

• • Detailed overviews for the use and configuration of imaging systems for various collection types

• • Issues affecting database design and management, including dealing with taxonomic trees and authority files

• • Issues in uniquely identifying collection objects and records,

• • Strategies for evaluating hardware and software

• • Strategies and considerations for georeferencing collection objects, including use of online collaborative tools

• • Methods for moving digitized data to the internet via data aggregators, harvesters, and portals

• • Dealing with poor connectivity and bandwidth

• • How to contribute data to iDigBio’s portal and data repository

• • Tools for developing institutional portals for serving biological collections data

• • The establishment of international working and interest groups for sustainable sharing of digitization practices and discoveries across nations

• • Issues unique or especially relevant to collections digitization and management in the South Pacific

PSA wishes to thank the iDigBio organizers for their efforts in making possible what was a very successful meeting.

New PSA Committee on Scientific Activities

At the meeting of the PSA Council during the 12th Pacific Science Inter-Congress in Fiji (July 2013), the Council announced the formation of a new ad hoc Committee on Scientific Activities (PSA-CSA) that will seek ways to define and develop a unique niche for PSA’s scientific activities, facilitate inter-sessional scientific activities between Congresses and Inter-Congresses, and help organize the content and activities of Congress/Inter-Congress sessions and keynote presentations. The PSA-CSA will liaise with the PSA Secretariat, Executive Board, and Local Organizing Committees of Congresses and Inter-Congresses. The following are the five members of the PSA-CSA:

Phil COWAN (Landcare Research; New Zealand)

HAN Sang-Bok (National Academy of Science; Korea)

Kevin JOHNSON (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa; USA)

LU Yonglong (Chinese Academy of Science; China-Beijing)

David SCHINDEL (Consortium for the Barcode of Life, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; USA)

Prof. Chang-Hung CHOU...