Cyamus has elected Amanda Whitmire as the new Cyamus Representative and Ruth Gustafson as the new Secretary. Molly Engelbrecht continues her role as Treasurer. Please join Cyamus in congratulating the leadership team!

https://aquadocs.org

We are pleased to launchAquaDocs, a new joint open access repository of the UNESCO/IOC International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) and the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC) with support from the FAO Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts(ASFA).

AquaDocs will benefit research communities and society at large by:

• making aquatic and marine science information FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable)

• offering a repository platform to organizations and individuals without the infrastructure to support their own

• providing a capacity development opportunity for the IODE and IAMSLIC communities

AquaDocs has been created by merging content from OceanDocs (IODE) and Aquatic Commons (IAMSLIC), two existing repositories with similar foci and overlapping user communities. By combining efforts to fund and operate one repository, AquaDocs offers a more streamlined and sustainable solution.

The hosted Open Repository software, used by AquaDocs, offers several new features, including a multilingual interface, user export of metadata, sharing of items through social media, usage statistics and Altmetrics, author profile pages, batch uploading of metadata with PDFs, and a metadata quality module.

Many individuals were involved in the development of AquaDocs, notably the Joint Repository Working Group with membership from the Aquatic Commons Board, OceanDocs Steering Group, IODE Project Office, and FAO ASFA Secretariat. WorldFish is responsible for the beautifully designed logo and branding.

If you are interested in depositing publications into AquaDocs or have other questions about the new repository, please email us at: support@aquadocs.org

The planning committee of the 47^th Annual Conference of the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC) is excited to invite you to join us for IAMSLIC 2021, October 12-14 to be held virtually, live from the Marine Institute in Galway, Ireland and in conjunction with 19th EURASLIC Conference.

Click here to submit your proposal or visit the 2021 IAMSLIC Conference website for more information.

Libraries Supporting Our Ocean

Sustaining and preserving our shared ocean for our shared future

The planning committee of the 47^th Annual Conference of the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centres (IAMSLIC) and the 19th European (EURASLIC) conference is excited to invite you to join us virtually, live from the Marine Institute, Galway, Ireland on the 12-14 October 2021.  

The 2021 conference theme is Libraries Supporting Our Ocean: Sustaining and preserving our shared ocean for our shared future.  2021 marks the start of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. IAMSLIC is on the frontline supporting our scientists to achieve this aim. Our organisation represents libraries from across the globe, all sharing our one ocean for our one future. Together we can share our library knowledge, our institutional missions, and our sustainability messages to further our personal understanding. We can return our learnings to our institutions, showing how our libraries can help respond and adapt to changes in our ocean and climate through our support services.

Our conference hopes to inspire a shared understanding of our ocean. We want it to be a catalyst to propel you to action. We want to celebrate how we as information professionals have a hand in shaping our shared future through the sustainable use of our oceans. We invite you to share your message with us, your IAMSLIC family. What does your library or institution do well to safeguard our future?

At this conference let us all see the future together.

We will open the call for proposals next week.

The planning committtee are:

• Angela Clark (Committee Chair)
• Jamie Goldman 
• Stephanie Ronan 
• Saida Messaoudi 
• Geoffrey Timms 
• Stephen Alayon 
• Michelle Leonard
• Sofija Konjevic

The joint SAIL/Cyamus two-day annual conference just wrapped up and we had a great time with tons of wonderful presentations. Keynote speaker Kara Gadeken set the tone with her fascinating talk about marine sediments and also about women in science. Presentations ranged from research data management to chatbots to Wikipedia. Kristen Culp from ProQuest/Clarivate gave us an update on recent organizational changes. The conference was ended each day by lively happy hour conversations. To find out more about SAIL and Cyamus look under People/Regional Groups on this page. 

CALLING ALL IAMSLIC MEMBERS!

Please check your email for a message from IAMSLIC regarding our upcoming membership meet-up on 25 May, 2021 at 10:00am EDT (UTC -04:00). The email will include a link to register for the online meeting via zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. We hope you can join us to hear updates from your IAMSLIC Executive Board, Committee Chairs, and Regional Representatives, and network with your fellow IAMSLIC Members. We look forward to seeing you online!

For those who cannot join us for the live online meeting, we will be recording this session and sharing it with all current IAMSLIC members in the Member Access area of our website. We will also be rotating the online meetings throughout the IAMSLIC regions and time zones every couple of months in order to ensure our membership has the opportunity to attend at least 1 live online meeting each year. Please stay tuned for future meeting invitations!

If you have any questions, please contact Jaime Goldman at hjaime@nova.edu.

Dear IAMSLIC members,

We would like to invite you to contribute to the next issue of the ASFA Magazine, which is due to be published in July 2021. The theme for the next issue is: Information systems to support aquatic science, fisheries and aquaculture. The attached document provides more detail on how to submit an article, and some ideas for articles are outlined below.

If you are thinking of submitting an article, please let me know as I'm happy to provide any support or guidance. Please feel free to share this call for proposals with anyone who might be interested in writing an article - we hope to receive submissions from as many people as possible!

For reference, issue five of the ASFA magazine is available here: http://www.fao.org/publications/card/es/c/CB2829EN/

Any questions or comments, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Tamsin Vicary

• ASFA Secretariat

• Fisheries Statistics and Information (NFIS)

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

• Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome, ITALY

• Room F-221

• Office telephone: +39 06 570 59000

• Email: Tamsin.Vicary@fao.org
  

Ideas for articles on Information Systems to support aquatic sciences:

• The role of information systems in supporting the UN Decade of Ocean Science (2021-2030, see https://www.oceandecade.org/)or UN Decade of Ecosystem restoration (2021-2030, see https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/). This could be a repository, database or service you use or manage that provides information relevant to either of these two decades.
• The role of information systems if providing access to trustworthy and reputable research. In an age where people rely on search engines and social media to access information, what is the role of databases, repositories and other systems in ensuring access to reliable information? Does more need to be done to ensure the public has access to scientific information and knowledge, and how can information systems combat misinformation?
• Meeting user needs – you could describe how an information system you use or manage meets specific user needs in the fields of aquatic science, fisheries or aquaculture. This could include use of the ASFA database at your institution.

Dear IAMSLIC Members,

The recording and minutes from our first virtual International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC) Membership Meet-up of 2021 are now available!  We had 92 registered attendees, and 58 participants that were able to join us live for this meeting on 24 February, 2021.  Please use the links below to hear updates shared at the meeting from your IAMSLIC Executive Board, Committee Chairs, and Regional Representatives, and more!  The link can be found on our IAMSLIC Website under Member Access > Meeting Minutes > Membership Meetings: 

• 24 February, 2021 Membership Meet-Up Recording & Minutes

All current IAMSLIC members are able to access this page by logging into their membership account.  For those who could not join us for the live online meeting, we hope you find this helpful and informative. 

As mentioned previously, we will be rotating the online meetings throughout the IAMSLIC regions and time zones every couple of months in order to ensure our membership has the opportunity to attend at least 1 live online meeting each year.  The next meeting will be held at the end of May at a different time.  Please stay tuned for that announcement! 

East-West Connections: Bridging the Continent/Connecting the Seas

May 19-20, 2021

Hosted by Gunter Library/Gulf Coast Research Laboratory/School of Ocean Science & Engineering/The University of Southern Mississippi (Virtual Conference via ZOOM)

As SAIL and CYAMUS collaborate to create a useful, timely, and engaging conference, they mirror the members libraries that collaborate with their constituencies to support scientific communication, scholarly engagement, and mission success. Building the bridges within our communities, connecting people and knowledge, and serving as trusted arbitrators, SAIL and CYAMUS libraries are leaders in partnering and supporting each other and our researchers, faculty, students, administrators, and public.

Some potential topics:

•             Identifying successful library partnerships.

•             After a year of challenges including closures and remote work, what short term responses will become long term changes to services and resources?

•             Engagement with users for insight into better delivery of products.

•             New developments in collection development.

•             The “Big Deal” packages—gone for good or undergoing changes?

•             Working with your Office of Research, Foundation, and other partnership opportunities.

•             Increasing diversity and inclusion (engagement with users; developing diverse collections, etc.)

Other ideas welcome!
 
Proposals for 30-minute presentations, 60-minute moderated panel discussions, and 10-minute lightning talks are due by April 16, 2021. Conference registration is required for presenters.              

Deadline Expended for conference proposal submissions: New deadline is April 23, 2021
Using the link below, please submit proposals by April 23, 2021. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe11xdDX0hVEXILpJfA3VKLibl2mRyvOWaMyyLyWazt4bVyLg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Calling all IAMSLIC Members! 

Please check your email for a message from IAMSLIC regarding our upcoming membership meet-up on 24 February, 2021 at 3:00pm EST.  The email will include a link to register for the online meeting via zoom.   After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.   

We hope you can join us to hear updates from your IAMSLIC Executive Board, Committee Chairs, and Regional Representatives, and network with your fellow IAMSLIC Members.  We look forward to seeing you online!

For those who cannot join us for the live online meeting, we will be recording this session and sharing it with all current IAMSLIC members.  We will also be rotating the online meetings throughout the IAMSLIC regions and time zones every couple of months in order to ensure our membership has the opportunity to attend at least 1 live online meeting each year.  Please stay tuned for future meeting invitations!

If you have any questions, please contact Jaime Goldman at hjaime@nova.edu.