[tdwg] TDWG 2009 in Montpellier (November 9-13) - registration now open

[Lee Belbin]

Dear TDWG Members and Friends (with apologies for CP)

The conference web site (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009) and online
registration is now open for TDWG 2009 in Montpellier. 

TDWG 2009 will have a very different structure to recent meetings. There
will be plenary sessions on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The three
themes 'The e-Biosphere Roadmap' (Walter Berendsohn), 'Agricultural
Biodiversity Informatics' (Elizabeth Arnaud) and 'Data Integration' (Roger
Hyam)' will operate generally as parallel working group sessions on Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday with introductions in the Monday plenary. 

The latest version of the Programme Committee's detailed programme can be
found on the conference site. The current committee thinking about the
working sessions (Tuesday-Thursday) can be found at
http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Conferences/Tdwg2009). Comments and
ideas can be added here.

This year, we are aiming at significant advances in areas such as the TDWG
ontology and LSID infrastructure. We also anticipate that Darwin Core, TAPIR
and the LSID Applicability Statement will be TDWG standards before TDWG
2009. What's next?

We warmly welcome the 'old hands' and new TDWG'ians. If you are new to TDWG
or thinking of  supporting us, please see
http://www.tdwg.org/getting-started/. If there is something you would like
to know and can't locate, something to grumble about, or something to
encourage, please email me at lee(at)tdwg.org. 

Montpellier is a wonderful city on the Mediterranean with the venue in the
centre of the city  that promises to be excellent: Good location, great
cuisine, excellent company and stimulating ideas on issues of global
significance. What more could you want? 

We hope to see you (and partners) in Montpellier.

Lee

Lee Belbin
TDWG Secretariat