Pamela Horsley1, Christy Bills2, Floyd Shockley3, Katrina Menard4, Gil Nelson5
1Michigan State University/ECN, 2Natural History Museum of Utah/ECN, 3Smithsonian Institution/ECN, 4Sam Noble Museum, Oklahoma State University/ECN, 5Florida State University/iDigBio
The Entomological Collections Network (ECN) and iDigBio are excited to announce we will be teaming up for this year's 24th Annual ECN meeting in Portland, Oregon from November 15-16, 2014. While iDigBio has presented regularly the past few years at ECN meetings, this year we are kicking things up a notch. With budget cuts continuing to be an issue for attending conferences, especially on an international level, this partnership will provide an opportunity for those not able to be in Portland for the meeting to join in and participate remotely via iDigBio's online AdobeConnect portal. The entire meeting will be broadcast live and we welcome participants from all areas of expertise to listen in and hopefully learn a few things. Additionally, iDigBio will record and archive all talks on their ECN Wiki page.
ECN was originally established in 1988 with the support of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) in response to the Council of Entomology Department Administrators (CEDA) Biodiversity/Biosystematics Initiative. The goal was "to broaden communication among systematists and entomological collections, to promote education about entomological collections and their management standards, and to share collection data, computer programs, expertise and computer-related experience." With these goals in mind, the Network has been meeting annually since 1990 and has had a steady increase in attendees that now averages over 200 people each year. As the meeting is held in conjunction with and just prior to the annual ESA meeting, we are fortunate to benefit from their large-scale operation and huge international attendance (~3000) and draw some of those interested specifically in entomological collections management our way.
ECN now operates as a non-profit organization and is dedicated to the promotion of entomological science through the preservation, management, use and development of entomological collections. ECN aims to disseminate information and foster communications between collections managers around the world regarding best practices in entomological (and arthropods, in general) natural history collections. The Network is maintained and organized entirely by a small group of volunteer Officers and is operated exclusively for scientific and educational purposes.
While this year's meeting program is still in the works, things are shaping up quite nicely, with symposium topics such as "Revisiting Collections Management Basics," "Innovative Collecting Techniques," and "Utilizing Collections Databases to Advance 21st Century Entomology" in development. We often cover many other relevant topics including collection updates by contributing institution, policy and data standards updates from GBIF and TDWG, as well as databasing and imaging workflows and strategies to name just a few. You can find past programs dating back to 1990 on our website, along with PowerPoint presentations shared via SlideShare starting in 2010.
Be sure to mark your calendars for Saturday, November 15 (8am - 6pm) and Sunday, November 16 (8 - 11am), 2014 and join us online via the following link: https://idigbio.adobeconnect.com/ecn
To learn more and stay up to date on what will be happening at this year's ECN meeting, please make sure to check back regularly on our Website (http://www.ecnweb.org/), follow us on Twitter (@EntCollNtwrk) or join our Facebook page (Entomological Collections Network).
