The Society of Herbarium Curators (SHC), open to everyone, is a forum for discussion, action and support, especially of threatened herbaria. Born in the Southeastern United states, SHC has gone on to form an umbrella organization, which aims to unite herbaria across the nation and around the world.

The purpose of the society shall be to promote and expand the role of herbaria in botanical research, teaching, and service to the community at large, to provide a forum for discussion and action on all issues confronting herbaria, and to extend its efforts and interject its influence toward the protection and preservation of endangered herbaria.

In particular, regional networks will be used to reach out to groups that have been historically underrepresented in the botanical and conservation communities, to land managers and state and federal agencies, and to the K-12 students and teachers. SHC will work to support herbaria of all types in these regions, to help develop community standards of curation, and to make certain that herbaria are fully utilized and not orphaned by their institutions.

For the past decade, the Southeastern Herbarium Curator's Committee, a group of curators in southeastern United States have been informally meeting with the Association of Southeastern Biologists (ASB). The group organized a symposium entitled "The Future of Plant Collections in the Southeast" in 2001 and the concept for the expansion of this organization was developed in the ensuing workshop. Through efforts spearheaded by John Herr at the University of South Carolina, Michael Woods at Troy University and Dan Evans at Marshall University, the group developed a constitution and formally organized as the SHC on July 4, 2004. The SHC has been recognized as an affiliate society by ASB and the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society (SABS).