903048B 7yrbuspln - U.P. Forest Department

History of ISIS
ISIS began in 1973 when Professor Ulysses S. Seal and a small group of veterinarians, scientists and
zoo leaders developed a vision for a global animal information system that would serve zoos and
aquariums. In the beginning, the Minnesota Zoological Garden generously served as the “enterprise
incubator” for ISIS. The American Zoo & Aquarium Association (AZA), the American Association of
Zoo Veterinarians (AAZV) and other zoological associations provided grants and encouragement.
ISIS began operations in 1974 with 55 member institutions (mostly in North America) and an
international vision, mission and name. Through 30 years, membership has grown at an average of
20 new institutional members per year, and expanded globally. Currently, ISIS has 630 members in
more than 70 countries on six continents. In 2004 alone, 50 new members joined ISIS.
In 1989, ISIS transformed from a self-funded department of the Minnesota Zoological Garden into
an international, member-owned, non-profit organization governed by the internationally elected
ISIS Board of Trustees. (See Appendix A for a list of current ISIS Board members.)
The history of ISIS can be seen as a 30-year “proof of concept.” ISIS staff has often been told “global
cooperation cannot be done.” Nevertheless, it IS being done! Through a mix of internal development
and outsourcing, ISIS has supported four generations of software for worldwide animal inventory,
veterinary record keeping, studbook applications and other uses, used by a steadily growing global network.
ISIS has played a key role in establishing standards and sharing globally pooled specimen records
among the zoo and aquarium community. ISIS has helped zoos and aquariums cooperate more than
comparable organizations, like botanical gardens and museums, in data management, software
development and global data sharing. This has many advantages, and has saved ISIS member
institutions the very considerable costs of developing such tools individually.
While the ISIS membership network has continuously expanded, limited ISIS resources have
slowed technical progress. For most of the history of ISIS, there has been one staff person for about
50 institutions served. This thrifty approach kept costs down, but at times in the past resulted in
long waits for technical service, inadequate training and restricted services.
The majority of the organization’s resources come from member dues, which now total US $1.4 million
per year, but were less than US $1 million annually before 2004. ISIS has relied substantially on more
than 70 grants and contracts, which have been generated by the organization’s small staff.
(A partial list of these grants is printed in Appendix C.)
Now, rapid advances in information technology offer enormous opportunities to carry the ISIS mission
further, serving the global zoo and aquarium community and wildlife conservation through effective,
current information sharing. Hence, ISIS has restructured its Board of Trustees, strengthened its internal
management team, and expanded and professionalized user technical support, adding essential staff
capacity to manage the Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS) Project.
ISIS is committed to further changes as needed to serve its members. As one measure of these changes,
there is now one ISIS staff person per 30 institutional members – improving the level of service ISIS provides.
To pay for these essential changes, the ISIS Board approved a restructured member dues schedule effective
from 2004. In addition, ISIS is conducting a capital campaign Building ZIMS: The Campaign for ISIS to
raise funds for development and deployment of ZIMS.
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