Saturday, June 27, 2009, was registration day for the 50th annual meeting of the American Society of Pharmacognosy. Opening symposium covered the history of ASP, with a retrospective look by decade, as well as the history of ASP's Journal of Natural Products, formerly Lloydia, as it was started in 1938 by the Lloyd Library and Museum. Appropriately, ASP's 50th meeting and its 5oth anniversary are being held in Hawaii, which is also celebrating its 50th anniversary as a state in the United States. Dr. Norman Farnsworth, UIC, regaled attendees with possibly questionable (?) versions of what happened at meetings in the first decade, including tales of keg parties in dorms in Rhode Island which were cause for police raids. hmmm.... And, he swears that when ASP finalized a deal with the Lloyd Library to co-publish Lloydia that he and his fellow ASP negotiators celebrated at a burlesque.
We saw many familiar faces, including A. Douglas Kinghorn of Ohio State University and a great supporter of the Lloyd, and Mark Blumenthal of American Botanical Council, who is one of the best "bridges" between the scientific world of plant/natural products science and grass-roots practitioners! Watch for more soon.
On Sunday, the real scientific programs get underway. We'll be working closely, in the days to come, with some ASP members to discuss how we proceed with transferring ASP's wonderful archive collection to the Lloyd in the near future.
