Forwarding as this may be of interest outside the US.
A new policy on scientific collections has been issued by Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. This builds on the work of the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (IWGSC), and in setting targets for the ongoing work of the IWGSC and federal agencies, further raises the profile of scientific collections. The policy can be found on the OSTP website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp-2010-scie...
On the international scene, the organization of the International Scientific Collections initiative (SciColl) under the auspices of the OECD Global Science Forum continues. Watch for announcements from this group soon. More information can be found at http://www.scicoll.org
Both IWGSC and SciColl are looking forward to working with the broader scientific collections communities in implementing their goals.
Scott Miller Co-chair, IWGSC Deputy Under Secretary for Science, Smithsonian Institution