[Taxacom] Biodiversity Collections Index

[Roger Hyam (TDWG)]

Dear Taxacomist,

I wish to announce the start of a project to build the Biodiversity  
Collections Index (BCI).

http://www.biodiversitycollectionsindex.org/

BCI aims to facilitate the understanding, conservation and utilisation  
of global biodiversity by creating a single annotated index of all  
collections of biodiversity materials used in research. BCI intends to  
do this by collaborating with the organisations and individuals who  
curate these collections and the information about them.

Note that this is an index to every collection containing specimens  
not every specimen.

Please visit the initial project website to read more about the  
project. There is a page for you to register your interest. If you do  
this you will be kept informed of developments up to the launch of the  
system in the summer. Importantly there is also an FAQ page as many  
people have similar questions on first hearing about the project.

A kick-off meeting is being held in Washington DC at the end of the  
month. You can read more about this on the associated TDWG NCD wiki  
page.

http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/NCD/BiodiversityCollectionsIndexKickOffMeeting

If you have issues that you think should be raised at the meeting  
please contact the most relevant participant or me directly. We plan  
to add the minutes to the NCD wiki as the meeting progresses.

I hope that BCI can be of service to our community over the coming  
years.

Best regards,

Roger Hyam

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Roger Hyam
Roger at BiodiversityCollectionsIndex.org
http://www.BiodiversityCollectionsIndex.org
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