COMPUTER-BASED TOOLS FOR OPTIMIZING PRESERVATION, ACCESS, AND USABILITY OF GEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS

For years the accumulation of geological materials in institutional and individual collections has continued without sufficient thought to long-term preservation, access and usability. Now these collections are at a pivotal point: with storage limits being exceeded and limited funding for collections management, geological materials are becoming endangered. If action is not taken soon to preserve these collections, then there is great risk of losing them forever. This message, unfortunately, is not new. A decade ago, the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources wrote a book titled “Geoscience Data and Collections: National Resources in Peril”. Their message was clear “Many [geoscience collections] could act as invaluable resources in the future but immediate action is needed if they are to remain available. Housing of and access to geoscience data and collections have become critical issues for industry, federal and state agencies, museums, and universities. Many resources are in imminent danger of being lost through mismanagement, neglect, and disposal”. This message is as true today as it was in 2002, and it raises the question: Why is nothing being done to better preserve geological collections?

A potential answer is that the necessary tools are missing. Typically the first tool used when beginning any task is a set of instructions, or guidebook. With this in mind the Collections Profiling Guide , a step-by-step guide to identifying the most valuable specimens in a collection and prioritizing their care, was developed. Another tool necessary for preserving collections and their associated data, is a computerized management system. As a result of this need, EGEMS, a database tool designed specifically for geological collections was developed. It has a simple, user-friendly interface, allows for storage of many data types (text, audio, documents, etc) and it has a multi-field search to aid users in finding information.

Worldwide, geological collections have many valuable and irreplaceable specimens. If these one-of-a-kind collections and the data associated with them have any hope of surviving 50, or even 100 years, then action is required now. These tools have been designed to make the first step of managing a geological collection easier, but they can only be effective if they are used by the geological community.