INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND DATA PRESERVATION PRACTICES OF THE FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

The comprehensive, institutional knowledge acquired by a staff member on past projects can be a great asset to any organization. Once that staff member leaves the organization, the data and knowledge can be lost forever. How does one preserve such information? At the Florida Department of Environmental Protection /Florida Geological Survey, archiving geoscience information in a manner which preserves institutional knowledge is a top priority. We have three basic principles for data preservation: 1) All information is maintained in its original form, without interpretation, when archiving data. The goal is to preserve the factual data without changing the meaning. 2) Provide one-on-one training of employees in methods of processing data to maintain continuity. With one-on-one training, the knowledge carried by one staff member is shared with others, thus institutional knowledge that might not be recorded in handbooks is imparted to future generations. 3) Metadata for any type of change including corrections or additions to the data are tracked. Record who made the changes, when they were made and why they were made. This information can be invaluable when questions or uncertainties arise.

We considered how technology can be used to further these three principles. One way is to migrate our geoscience data to an Oracle database in order to track changes made to entries and to define standards for data entry. Various electronic collections can also be connected into one source for more efficient research. Hard copies, particularly of out-of-print or difficult to access documents, can be replaced with PDF scans, whereas geophysical logs can be archived via vector scans. Since institutional knowledge is such a valuable resource, stewardship of this knowledge is paramount. Again, technology can be used to address this issue through the development of an in-house “wikipedia” medium that would allow staff members to create articles about past projects and link personal concepts and ideas to our geoscience data. We cannot live without historical institutional knowledge; hence its preservation needs to be in the forefront of our data preservation efforts.