Over the past six months, the Advisory Council for the Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance Research Coordination Network has been talking with members of the biodiversity collections community to obtain feedback that will help guide its work. As a result of this conversation, we have learned that our name, NIBA RCN, was not clearly communicating the purpose of the project. In short, it was creating the impression that a NIBA has already been established. In reality, the RCN is focused on gathering the information and supporting the development of the communities necessary to inform and sustain the development of a Networked Integrated Biocollections Alliance.
Thus, at a recent meeting of the Advisory Council, it was decided that a name change was in order. The Advisory Council endeavored to come up with a new name that is more reflective of our goals and objectives. Thus, we are renaming our initiative the “Biodiversity Collections Network” (BCoN).
We hope you will forgive this brief hiccup in our efforts and recognize, as we did, that BCoN is more reflective of our goals and what the community is working toward.
We invite you to join with us as we, through BCoN and other national efforts, work to build a Network Integrated Biocollections Alliance that we can all embrace and work to sustain.