The 11th annual Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) Summit was held virtually September 21st, 2021. This year’s Summit was abbreviated due to scheduling in conjunction with the Biodiversity Digitization event. The ADBC Summit brought together representatives from Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs), Partners to Existing Networks (PENs), the National Science Foundation (NSF), iDigBio, and other initiatives related to the national effort to digitize biodiversity collections through NSF's ADBC program. The Summit’s aim was to inspire collaboration and facilitate discussions on shared goals, challenges, and opportunities. Session recordings and presentations can be found on the Summit wiki page.
The two new TCNs (Bringing Asian plant diversity to digital life & Big-Bee) gave 15 minute presentations introducing themselves and their digitization goals. Seventeen active TCNs gave presentations that included a short overview of their TCN and either a story highlighting their accomplishments in workflows, sustainability, collaboration, broader impacts, and research use of data, or one lesson learned that would benefit new TCNs starting out. Presentations were ten minutes long and provided a lot of helpful insight about what the TCNs have accomplished over the last year.
In lieu of a conference session providing orientation information, this year’s iDigBio orientation is being expanded over a series of webinars. Visit the event wiki page for a full list of topics to be addressed.
