CBHL & EBHL symposium at International Botanical Congress 2005

[Zanoni, Thomas]

IBC 2005 - Call for participation

The XVII International Botanical Congress will be held in Vienna, Austria,
18-23 July 2005 - see http://www.ibc2005.ac.at/ . CBHL and EBHL propose a
joint presentation aimed at raising awareness amongst scientists of the
contribution the library and information world is making in the "digital
age" and how its services, products and expertise can help research and
digitization projects in other areas.

IBC is organized with a number of parallel sessions or 'symposia', and
proposals for symposia have to be received by the organizers by 30 September
2003. Abstracts for papers for the accepted symposia will then be requested,
with a closing date to be announced in the Second Circular, which is due to
appear "summer
2004".  You can register to receive this on the website above.

Symposia are grouped in eleven scientific disciplinary areas; ours would fit
naturally into no. 11, "Knowledge sharing Databases, Bioinformatics,
Electronic Communications, Education".

CBHL and EBHL are setting up a joint working party to progress this idea;
at present this consists of Gordon McDaniel at the New York Botanical Garden
(GMcDaniel at nybg.org) for CBHL and Roger Mills at Oxford University
(roger.mills at plantlib.ox.ac.uk) for EBHL.  Any members who would like to
join
us in helping to organize the symposium will be very welcome!

Immediately, we need suggestions for topics and offers of papers. The
official language of the Congress is English; those who are not native
English speakers are welcome to team up with those who are to help present a
paper or poster. We are particularly concerned that the activities of all
our member countries are represented.

Any ideas are welcome, but as a starting point we suggest the following
working title for the symposium:

"Biodiversity Informatics: virtual access to global resources"
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Doug Holland of Missouri Botanical Garden has suggested the following
possible topics:
- specimen databases
- unionizing specimen databases
- electronic keys
- GIS and automated georeferencing algorithms
- digitizing specimens and literature
- interface with online herbaria and global biodiversity initiatives such as
GBIF

Changes in scholarly communications paradigms: this could be a sub-theme
focussing on future changes in the way primary literature is created:
- new publishing models
- open access electronic journals
- Open Archives Initiative
- dSpace, ePrints, the SPARC initiative  http://www.arl.org/sparc/
- dwindling institutional support for libraries
- long term preservation of digital objects (especially born digital or
electronic only journals)

Within these topics we might cover:
- technical issues: how it's done, what has been done, what could be do-able
in the future
- content selection issues: choosing what to digitise, academic/scientist
involvement, devising a user-led system, avoiding duplication
- networking issues: making everything available everywhere, access,
infrastructure and rights issues
- financial issues: how to pay for it, what to charge whom

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We are informed that generally symposia are organized as follows:

1) one key note speaker (30 min) should open a symposium
2) 5 or 6 speakers  (20 min incl. discussion time) continue, so the total
time will be 130 or 150 minutes
3) additional contributions should be moved to poster session
4) speakers should be mixed according to their provenance
5) detailed information needed on symposium topic
6) proposals for symposia will be forwarded by the Secretary General to the
heads of one or more Disciplinary Areas.

Within this structure we might consider a panel format, so discussion could
take place between the speakers, resulting in a more rounded presentation
and hopefully encouraging contributions from the floor.

If any of these ideas enthuse you, or you have others you think should be
covered, we need to hear from you NOW! Without potential speakers we cannot
put forward a proposal. If you have a project, experience, or just bright
ideas to share, please let us know. You are not committing yourself to
anything at this stage; our proposal has first to be approved by the
organizers!

Please reply as soon as possible: by *August 25th* if you can, as we will
start formulating the program that week. But if you do not see this
message until later, do still reply - the submission will not be made until
late September.

Gordon McDaniel
Head, Technical Services
The LuEsther T. Mertz Library
The New York Botanical Garden
Bronx, NY  10458
718/817-8619


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Thomas A. Zanoni
New York Botanical Garden
200th Street at Southern Blvd.
Bronx, NY 10458-5126, USA
email tzanoni at nybg.org
tel. (718) 817-8651
fax (718) 817-8809
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