Dear All, At the 2004 TDWG meeting in Christchurch, a new subgroup was formed to develop the BioCASE collections description standard from dealing only with collections of specimens and observations data to dealing with any type of collection of natural history related material. Such collections include bibliographic, archival and artwork collections and especially mixed collections formed during expeditions and the voyages of discovery. Background information on NCD, along with the uses of collections descriptions and the latest version of the XML Schema (v 0.32) may be found at: http://www.tdwg.org/NCD/TDWG_NCD_Subgroup.htm [note underscores] A number of TDWG'ers expressed interest in helping with the development of NCD as one of the suite of data standards being produced for TDWG. There will be a subgroup meeting at this year's TDWG meeting for those of you that are able to attend and to which you will be very welcome. If you are interested in helping with NCD but have not already registered your interest or are unable to attend the St Petersburg meeting, please let me know and I will add your email address to main NCD list. All comments are welcome, With thanks, Neil ------- Neil Thomson Head of Data & Digital Systems The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5294, Fax: +44 (0)20 7942 5559, Email: n.thomson@nhm.ac.uk http://www.nhm.ac.uk