Dear all,

As was discussed previously (on the list and in Bratislava) we plan to have a meeting 14-16 November. At this time, I am working on a budget for a meeting in St Louis. I am also looking at options for including those who cannot make it to St Louis (due to time constraints) for electronic conferencing.

* Skype can handle up to nine connections in a conference call, and only handle 2 in a video conference. * I have access to a Webex account that will allow for shared desktops (that can be moved around among various people--either control of the mouse on a remote screen, or the desktop being used). * VRVS (http://www.vrvs.org/) appears to be another option for video/phone conferencing and desktop sharing. If you are interested in participating remotely, take a look at the quick tour at the top of the page and see if you will be able to use this.

Please let me know ASAP if (a) you want to participate electronically and if you think VRVS will work for you. Arturo Ariño will be testing the VRVS shortly. As a fallback, I suggest we go with Webex & Skype (we may be able to patch some people from a Skype conference into the Webex conference so those who are overseas can avoid the call charges--I will test this).

Remember, the meeting will take place during the day in US Central Standard Time (UTC/GMT -6 hours), so if you want to participate electronically, you will need to be prepared for our hours (or overlapping with some as best you can).

At the current time, there are only a few people who have expressed firm interest in attending the conference in person:

* Anna Weitzman * Chris Lyal * Terry Catapano * Donat Agosti * Chris Freeland * Chuck Miller

If your name is not on that list, and you would like to attend, please let me know ASAP, so I can include your costs in the budget. Conversely, if you are on the list and will not be able to attend, please also let me know.

I need to finalize the budget for this within a week, so please let me know if and how you want to be included ASAP!

Thanks & best regards,

Anna

Anna L. Weitzman, PhD Botanical and Biodiversity Informatics Research National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution

office: 202.633.0846 mobile: 202.415.4684 weitzman@si.edu