[CML #16328] Fwd: NCKRI News!

Dear Friends,

Most of my messages are a mix of news from NCKRI and from our partners and friends. This message is only news about NCKRI and some of its projects:

· New Employees at NCKRI!

· Karst Information Portal upgrade

· NCKRI’s new Annual Report is now available

· DeepKarst Conference proceedings are now available

As always, please feel free to share this message with anyone you think may be interested. If anyone is getting this message through a friend and wants to be added to the NCKRI e-mail list, just contact me at my address at the end of this message.

Thank you,

George

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New employees at NCKRI!

I’m happy to announce that NCKRI has gained two new employees. In late April we were joined by Courtney Gasow, who comes with an impressive background in designing, organizing, and hosting events. She is NCKRI’s Event Planner and raising awareness of NCKRI Headquarters as a versatile destination for people to hold meetings, parties, conferences, and many other activities through rental of our facilities. All funds from these rentals support NCKRI programs. Courtney is also planning events that NCKRI is hosting, including assisting with conferences. For information on having NCKRI host your event, contact Courtney at .

Debbie Herr has retired. She served excellently as NCKRI’s Office Manager for nearly nine years. We thank her for dedication and commitment to NCKRI and wish her all the best as she take a well-earned break from work.

Loren Darby is NCKRI’s new Office Manager. Her background in administration, finances, and personnel management is exemplary. She joined us in mid-September at a running start, learning NCKRI’s complex administrative and financial structures, and providing critical support to ongoing and upcoming NCKRI projects. When you call NCKRI’s main phone number, 575-887-5518, she will be happy to assist you.

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Karst Information Portal upgrade

The Karst Information Portal (www.karstportal.org) is a free on-line library with thousands of reports and publications in many languages from over 20 countries around the world. It is a project of NCKRI in partnership with The University of South Florida Libraries, International Union of Speleology, and the University of New Mexico. The Portal is used by explorers, managers, educators, and scientists to advance their activities in cave and karst studies.

For much of this year, the Portal has been working but no new publications were added because it was going through a major system upgrade. The Portal team followed comments from users to improve the ease of its use, while converting to a new software platform that dramatically improves the Portal’s functionality and adding flexibility for future improvements. We encourage you to visit the Portal, and see its new design and navigation to better find its publications.

Currently, the backlog of hundreds of new publications are being added quickly to the Portal and they should all be up by the end of January. More improvements will be added in the coming months, including a tool where you can directly submit your publications for posting.

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NCKRI’s new Annual Report is now available

Each year NCKRI publishes an Annual Report that summarizes its activities over the past fiscal year (July 1^st to June 30^th). Our 2015-2016 Annual Report is now available for download from our website at http://nckri.org/about_nckri/nckri_publications.htm. Like all of NCKRI’s publications, they are free for digital download. This includes…

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DeepKarst Conference proceedings are now available

In April 2016, NCKRI hosted the first DeepKarst conference on hypogene karst. The papers from that conference are now available as NCKRI Symposium 6 at the above address. The 203-page proceedings volume contains 31 peer-reviewed papers by scientists from 10 countries, organized under the following headings: a) Hypogene Speleogenesis Models, b) Regional Case Studies in Hypogenic Speleogenesis, c) Hypogenic Speleogenesis and Petroleum, d) Hydrothermal Karst, e) Hypogenic Drivers for Ecosystems, and f) Local Case Studies in Hypogenic Speleogenesis. Also available is the Program with Abstracts and the field trip guidebook: Evaporite Karst of the Lower Pecos Valley, New Mexico.

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George Veni, PhD

Executive Director

National Cave and Karst Research Institute

400-1 Cascades Avenue

Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220-6215 USA

Office: 575-887-5517

Mobile: 210-863-5919

Fax: 575-887-5523