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GBIF NewsletterNo. 19 - November 2010
The mission of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is to facilitate free andopen access to biodiversity data worldwide via the Internet to underpin sustainable
development. Priorities, with an emphasis on promoting participation and working throughpartners, include mobilising biodiversity data, developing protocols and standards to ensure
scientific integrity and interoperability, building an informatics architecture to allow theinterlinking of diverse data types from disparate sources, promoting capacity building andcatalysing development of analytical tools for improved decision-making.

CALLS FOR ACTION AND PARTICIPATION
Call for comments on draft version of GBIF white paper
GBIF has convened a group to prepare a white paper with a set of recommendations to GBIF forthe community development, management and deployment of Knowledge Organisation Systems.
You are invited to review (or circulate for review to interested colleagues) the paper. Deadline
for comments is 7 December. [read more...]Call for the NPT Advisory Group is open
The Nodes Portal Toolkit is envisioned as a suite of informatics tools for helping GBIF
Participants to deploy, maintain and extend biodiversity data portals (at the national, regionalor thematic level). Deadline for application is 15 December. [read more...]
GBIF Small Awards for Evaluating Checklist Publication Format
The GBIF Secretariat is offering a limited number of small awards of up to €5,000 to GBIF
Participants to evaluate the current DarwinCore Archive taxonomic data exchange format.
Deadline for application is 20 December. [read more...]Discussion Paper on ‘Data Hosting Infrastructure’ released for community consultation
The GBIF Secretariat wishes to solicit the comments of the GBIF community and other scholarly
societies on the current version of the draft Discussion Paper on ‘Data Hosting Infrastructure’.
Deadline for comments is 30 January 2011. [read more...]Testing of the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit
The re-engineering of the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) is nearing completion with arelease candidate (2.0RC1) expected to be offered for community testing on the 29th
November. You are invited to participate in the testing. [read more...]COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
Albertine Rift region commits to biodiversity data and data-sharing
On 20 October the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) celebrated the signing of aRegional MOU on the collaboration in biodiversity data and information sharing by leading
national institutions from a number of countries. [read more...]TOOLS AND SERVICES
Enhanced data exchange formats improve data publishing
Recent adoption of the DarwinCore Archive data exchange standard has enabled an increase inthe total number of records mobilised through the GBIF network from 215 million in September
2010 to more than 267 million . [read more...]Project Coordinators for the Nodes Portal Toolkit appointed
The GBIF Secretariat is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Bruno Danis and Mr. Nabil
Youdjou as Project Coordinators for the development of the Nodes Portal Toolkit (NPT). They
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will be working together with the various NPT stakeholders towards the development of the NPT
core modules, expected to be ready for beta testing around Q4-2011. [read more...]PARTICIPATIONGBIF – now 101 Participants
GBIF is happy to welcome two new Participants. The Principality of Andorra became GBIF’s
100th Participant when they joined as Associate Country Participant in September. ICLEI – Local
Governments for Sustainability joined as a new Associate Participant in October, with the MoU
signing ceremony conducted at the CBD CoP10 in Nagoya, Japan. The total number of GBIF
Participants is now 101, comprising 55 GBIF country members and 46 international organisation
members. For a full list of GBIF’s current Participants, click here.

PUBLICATIONS
Three Key documents released for use and uptake by the Participants and data publishers• State-of-the-Network 2010: Discovery and Publishing of Primary Biodiversity Data throughthe GBIF Network• Best Practice Guide for ‘Data Discovery and Publishing Strategy and Action Plans’• A special issue of the journal Biodiversity Informatics on ‘Towards a Global Strategy andAction Plan for Discovery and Publishing of Natural History Collections Data’
GBIF-India Pilot Project Workshop Proceedings Available
The proceedings and key recommendations of the workshop on ‘Developing an EIA Biodiversity
Data Publishing Framework: India Pilot Project’ held in India, during 23-25 June 2010 can now
be accessed through the GBIF website. [read more...]MEETINGS & EVENTSGBIF Network generated high profile at CBD CoP10The wider GBIF community generated a conspicuous profile amongst the large number of eventsand participants at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD CoP 10), held in Nagoya, Japan, October 18-29, probably the most important international
meeting of 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity. [read more...]
GBIF Governing Board Meeting held in Korea
At the 17th Meeting (GB17) of the GBIF Governing Board in Suwon, Republic of Korea in Octoberdelegations unanimously adopted the GBIF Suwon Declaration and furthermore approved a new,open-ended Memorandum of Understanding and a budget for 2012 – 2016. Elections for theScience and Nodes committees took place and the Annual Ebbe Nielsen Prize was awarded
together with the new GBIF Young Researcher’s Award. [read more...].
GBIF participation at GEO VII Plenary meeting & Ministerial
The GBIF Executive Secretary represented GBIF at the recent Group for Earth Observations(GEO) Annual meeting held in Beijing China, Nov 2-5. [read more...]CONTACTS
Postal and physicaladdress:

GBIF Secretariat
Universitetsparken 15
DK-2100 Copenhagen ØDenmark

Contact information for GBIF
Secretariat staff:

Tel: +45 35 32 14 70
Fax: +45 35 32 14 80
E-mail: info@gbif.org

http://www.gbif.org/communications/directory-ofcontacts/gbif-secretariat/

GBits archive: http://www.gbif.org/communications/resources/newsletters/
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No. 19, November 2010