The biocollections community is currently engaged in an important process to develop an Implementation Plan that will guide the multi-year effort to create a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance.
The Implementation Plan for the Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance builds upon the work of an earlier report: A Strategic Plan for Establishing a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance. The Strategic Plan issues a strong and urgent call for an aggressive, sustained, coordinated, and large-scale effort to digitize the nation's biological collections in order to mobilize their data (including images) through the Internet. The draft Implementation Plan outlines the actions, timelines, and milestones required to achieve these goals. It was developed by a writing team drawn from the participants in a September 2012 workshop of experts in biocollections, digitization, computer science, and other relevant fields. The workshop was co-organized by James Hanken and Lucinda McDade and convened by the American Institute of Biological Sciences, with support from the National Science Foundation. A draft of the Implementation Plan is now available for public comment at http://blogs.aibs.org/niba/. Members of the biological collections community and other stakeholders are encouraged to review the plan and submit comments to the comment section of the website or via email to [email protected]. Comments must be received by 26 November 2012.
