A new home for ISH

In the next few weeks the International Society of Hymenopterists website will change hosting companies. We are moving to Dreamhost because they provide free hosting for organizations with non-profit status and allow us to maintain our own member database.

Please forgive any website downtime as we make the transition.

New membership database

In the February 2009 newsletter I mentioned that we were developing a new ISH membership database that would allow each of us to :

• make address changes
• pay our dues online and sponsor other members
• browse/search for colleagues
• save the Society hosting fees
• enable us to easily feed address information to the publisher of JHR

We are happy to report that this new database will finally be online in early July thanks to the programming efforts of ISH member Katja Seltmann. I post some screen shots below to tantalize you. More info to follow soon...

Members can login. If they lose their passwords they can solicit password reminders.

Members can edit their address and other information in their profiles.

Members can browse or search for other members.

JHR back issues

I've been taking advantage of the Biodiversity Heritage Library's archive of the Journal of Hymenoptera Research lately, and I think it's worth reminding everyone that every issue from volumes 1-16 (1992-2007) is up there. You can download each issue as a PDF, and you can search/select text. There are some real gems in there! The image above, which is an illustration of Aleiodes melanopterus (Erichson), can be found on page 266 in volume 1, issue 1.

February 2009 newsletter available

We're a couple weeks late with the February 2009 newsletter (PDF), but it's finally available. Among the highlights you'll find a preliminary announcement for the 7th International Congress of Hymenopterists, to be held June 20-26, 2010 in the beautiful town of Kőszeg, Hungary (a more official announcement (.doc) is also available). Perhaps most importantly, however, is the call for 2009 membership renewals (see page 5 of the newsletter for that all-too-familiar dues form). Please send in your membership renewal within the next four weeks in order to escape paying the $10 late fee!

new ISH group on Facebook

We have a new group on Facebook. We welcome anyone to join us!

new president-elect: Mike Sharkey

As was announced at the ISH symposium at the Entomological Society of America annual meeting in Reno, our new president-elect is Dr. Michael J. Sharkey from the University of Kentucky. Congratulations Mike!

Vote for ISH president - by November 7th

This is just a friendly reminder that the ISH presidential election comes to a close one week from tomorrow. There are several ways to vote for president-elect: 1) email the secretary (secretary@hymenopterists.org) with your choice written in the body of the email, 2) attach your official ballot to an email and send to the secretary, 3) mail your ballot to the secretary:

Andy Deans, ISH secretary
Department of Entomology
NC State University
Box 7613
Raleigh, NC 27695 USA

If you have any questions let me know! The new president-elect will be announced at the ISH symposium at the Entomological Society of America annual meeting and on this blog on November 16.