Call for papers: Entomological collections in public education & outreach activities
Initiated by the symposium “Collections Reaching Out”, held as part of the 2024 annual meeting of the Entomological Collections Network (ECN) in Phoenix, Arizona, a new topical collection invites contributions from across the globe to the Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM) journal.
Titled “Entomological Outreach Collections and Community Engagement”, the collection is guest edited by the symposium organisers and moderators: Dr Jennifer C. Girón Duque (Museum of Texas Tech University) and Dr Victor Gonzalez (University of Kansas).
“This collection of papers will provide insights into the design and use of entomological outreach drawers that will guide curators, educators, and researchers in creating more impactful tools that ultimately strengthen the connection between scientific research and community,” say the collection editors.
While it has been confirmed that the collection is to bring together several studies presented at the 2024 symposium, the guest editors extend the call for papers to all researchers around the globe, including those that have not attended the event and those who are not members of the ECN.
To be accepted, the submitted manuscripts will need to explore the role of outreach drawers - defined as sets of specimens curated specifically for public education and awareness - in education and best practices, as well as discussing strategies to maximize their effectiveness.
As part of a topical collection rather than a special issue, once accepted, each paper will be proceeding straight to publication. The deadline for submissions to the collection is 30 April 2025.
As a Diamond Open Access, the NHCM journal does not charge authors for the publication of their accepted papers.
“The NHCM journal is a unique and ideal venue to showcase these contributions that have traditionally been scattered through the literature,” add the collection editors.
To have their manuscripts sent to the collection editors and considered for the collection, authors will need to select the option during the manuscript submission process.
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The Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM) journal was launched in 2024 by Editors-in-Chief: Dr. Franco Andreone (Turin Museum of Natural History, Italy), Dr. Shuqiang Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), Dr. Shelley A. James (Western Australian Herbarium, Australia) and Dr. Deborah L Paul (Illinois Urbana Champaign, USA) and is published by the open-access scientific publisher Pensoft on the ARPHA publishing platform. Since its conception, the journal has been supported by CETAF (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities).
The goal of the NHCM journal is “to serve as a platform for exploring the roles and functions of natural history museums, addressing their opportunities and challenges, and investigating the applications of the scientific collections they curate,” as put by the team behind the journal in the inaugural editorial.
Find more about the NHCM journal on its journal website and its launch announcement.