Contact the Program Manager
The NBII is a collaborative effort, led by the U.S. Geological Survey,
to build a distributed electronic "federation" of biological data and
information from many sources. Our success rests on a growing network
of partners who are interested in sharing and using biological
information. Actively involving partners in NBII planning, design, and
implementation is of fundamental importance to this effort. Obviously,
no single agency or organization working alone can support this type of
broad, distributed federation. There are several major ways in which
interested agencies and organizations can participate in the
development of the NBII: - Working
with a broad group of NBII partners and cooperators to help identify,
prepare, and increase access to significant sources of biological data
and information.
- Participating
in efforts to assess requirements of selected biological data and
information "communities" -- such as natural history museum collections
and State-level biological data sources -- and to ensure the
requirements of these communities are incorporated and accommodated
within the NBII.
- Working
cooperatively with other public and private agencies and organizations
to develop the technologies, tools, and standards needed to help make
biological data and information more broadly accessible.
- Representing
the objectives and activities of the NBII in working with related
activities and networks at the national and international levels, and
in such events as conferences, workshops, and symposia.
If
your agency or organization has biological data and information you
would like to make more accessible to others, we can provide guidance
on the considerations and requirements for documenting and serving
information as part of the NBII. Please remember that while NBII
funding to directly assist individual projects in such matters is
limited, we can help you identify other possible opportunities for
support and partnerships. We can also offer you training or technical
assistance in such areas as: metadata standards and metadata
preparation, and the application of selected software tools or
techniques for serving, accessing, retrieving, and applying biological
information.
NBII
partnerships can range from formal agreements for parties to work
together on an identified project, to simple, informal cooperation on
one or more mutually beneficial areas. The exact nature of a given NBII
partnership depends on the interests and requirements of the
participating agency or organization. If your agency or organization is
working to help increase access to and use of biological data and
information and interested in participating with others in building the
NBII federation, or if you would simply like to learn more about the
NBII and how it might relate to your interests and activities, contact
the NBII National Program Office:
NBII National Program Office
302 National Center
Reston, Virginia 20192
Phone: (703) 648-4216
FAX: (703) 648-4224
email: nbii@nbii.gov