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For those of you who are not familiar with the Industry
Biostratigraphic Coordinators (formerly Industry Paleontology
Managers), we are a representative body of Paleontologists working
within the major oil companies. We meet every 1-2 months and discuss
issues and problems facing paleontologists in industry as well as
those facing paleontology as a science. It is not a formal
organization, nor are we affiliated with any society or external
organizations and we plan to maintain it as such. We have a mission
and vision, but I will not share those here. They are available for
those who are interested. We do keep minutes and we thought there
might be a number of you out there who would be interested in our
results. I will be sending out these minutes of our meetings as we
hold them for reasons of promoting communication with the entire
paleontological community. I hope they will not be regarded as junk
E-mail and we would suggest that other such organizational interest
groups (museums, consultants, academics, funding organizations, etc),
where and if they have formed, might consider doing the same. As with
1994, we have set out a list of objectives that we would like to work
toward for 1995. Those are listed below. We had objectives for 1994
and earlier this year, we summarized our success/failure in meeting
those objectives. I will send that out at a later date.
Industry Biostratigraphic Coordinators Group
Objectives for 1995
1. Form a Paleontological Network including industry, consultants,
academia, government, museums, societies, etc.
<Ongoing. This we consider to be one of our big successes for
1994. We organized the Denver AAPG Meetin consisting of a
cross-section of Paleontologists to begin a dialogue. The main fall
out of this meeting was the establishing of PaleoNet. Thanks to the
major effort of the NHM, London it is a reality. We also have
organized a Paleo Network Meeting in Seattle and Houston. Bottom line
on the objective is that we strongly feel that paleontologists of all
disciplines and organizations need to communicate better so as to form
a more cohesive science. Remember what Ben Franklin said about
`hanging together or surely we will all hang apart'. I hate to remind
us of that PaleoNet dialogue/junk e-mail.>
2. Send out summaries of annual results and meeting summaries on
PaleoNet, Micropal
<Just what we are trying to do.>
3. Meet with Museum Specialists to begin Networking.
<With industry focusing on the applications only part of the work
chain, we feel the heart of paleontology is left hanging. The
analysis and taxonomic part of our business is at risk and we want to
do something about it. Museums would seem to us to be a stable
organizational entity that with the available staffing could carry
this part of paleontology forward and perhaps make a profit at it. It
certainly is more vision than reality at this time, but we would like
to talk to a group of museum paleontologists/directors to see what
could if anything be structured.>
4. Identify key contacts in museums, NSF, Government, Academia,
Surveys, etc., for communication--resource reasons.
<We believe that, in addition to paleontologists communicating through
PaleoNet, journals and so on, we need the leaders of museums, heads of
government paleo groups, heads of industry paleo groups, key
academicians, etc., to be communicating. We sense that this is not
happening. Such a communicating group could be a powerful force
within the scientific world and could do nothing but good for
paleontology as a whole.>
5. Continue to investigate quality best practices among vendors and
options.
--processing/sample handling
--analysis
<We feel we need to provide consultants and vendors with some best
practices guidelines to improve and standardize quality of processing
and analysis of fossils that we ask them to work on for us.>
6. Formalize a plan for an industry library network.
a. Initial focus on current journal subscriptions.
b. Contact person at each company for books.
c. Highlight strengths of each.
<Large industry paleontological libraries are currently at risk and we
need to strategize around maintaining them and utilizing them most
effectively to all of our benefit.>
7. Work on article targeted for Explorer on need for paleo
coordinators in larger independents. Initiate with follow-up letter
informing them of available biostrat. services to differentiate
between independents doing paleo/rock work vs. no paleo.
<Many larger independent oil companies request volumes of
paleontological work from outside sources but they do not have the
staff to analyze and effectively utilize the paleo information they
receive. We would like to convince them that they can save and make
money by having at least one paleontolgist on staff. This would also
probably have the effect of increasing the work for those on the
outside.>
8. Establish User Groups on Quantitative Stratigraphy and Ragware.
<We would like to start some Houston based discussion groups on
particular computer product use or emerging specialties.>
9. Promote better communications with Houston area paleo community.
10. Compile a contractor register for vendor services.
<We would appreciate any comments that you may have. Are we on
target, or do you think there are other matters we should be
addressing.>
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