Hi Everyone!

Gehen Sie zu SPNHC 2016 Konferenz? Are you going to SPNHC 2016? It's in Berlin this year, from June 20 - 25, 2016.

Folks from iDigBio (https://www.idigbio.org/), RBGE (http://www.rbge.org.uk/), and UO (https://uoregon.edu/) are convening a Symposium at SPNHC 2016. With this email, we'd like to invite you to submit an abstract for our consideration.

*Symposium:* An International Conversation on Mobilizing Natural History Collections (NHC) Data and Integrating Data for Research.

Natural History Collection (NHC) data are being mobilized all over the world. Recent preliminary worldwide survey data suggests the trend is growing. As digitization begins to become an every-day part of collections, many compelling issues vie for attention. For example, cost, prioritization, sustainability, and rates of digitization are four such issues. And, many uses for NHC data are well-known and fairly well-understood. But issues exist with the data, and there is still much legacy data to be digitally captured – before it can be shared with the world’s researchers. We invite presentations from anyone in the collections and biodiversity informatics community who is involved in the mobilization and use of NHC data. We envision an assortment of talks covering three areas:

1. digitization (including imaging) lessons learned and outstanding questions, 2. new and emerging technologies/models, and cross-discipline collaborations for digitization and georeferencing, and 3. collections data-in-action.

Our speakers may be, for example, those doing the digitization and mobilization of the data; museum collection administrators actively incorporating digitization into their museum’s mission and vision; computer, information, and library scientists supporting digitization and research efforts; education and outreach staff working with citizen scientists to digitize and georeference; or those using collections data in research.

*Abstract* *submission deadline is 15 March 2016. **Note Well:* SPNHC 2016 local organizers are using an online-abstract-submission system and abstract template form you can find here: http://www.spnhc2016.berlin/page15.html Please note in your submission that the abstract is intended for the*International Conversation Symposium *and indicate which track or tracks your talk will address. Please use key tags: #Digitization Lessons Learned, #New Technology, New Strategies, and / or #Collections Data-In-Action.

You may direct any specific questions regarding the International Conversation Symposium to session conveners Deb Paul (dpaul@fsu.edu), Elspeth Haston (e.haston@rbge.org.uk), or Brian Westra (bwestra@uoregon.edu)

Vielen Dank und Alles Gute für 2016, Many thanks and Happy New Year!, Deb, Elspeth, and Brian Please see the SPNHC symposia page for a detailed abstract http://www.spnhc2016.berlin/page40.htmlhttp://www.spnhc2016.berlin/page40.html. (please excuse cross-postings)