Welcome to the IWGSC

The IWGSC promotes responsible stewardship of the object-based scientific collections that serve the missions of the U.S. Federal Government. A major goal of the group is to encourage federal agencies to focus attention on integrated support and planning for the care and use of federally held scientific collections. Additionally, IWGSC is a leader within the broader scientific collections community, interfacing with many independent and university-held collections and stewards.

This clearinghouse provides information about the history of the IWGSC, the participating U.S. Federal Departments and Agencies, the policies that govern the stewardship of these resources, and pertinent reports and literature to IWGSC and the scientific collections community.

The U.S. Federal Scientific Collections registry (USFSC) is an online portal that provides top-level information about the scientific collections owned by the Federal Government and their parent institutions.