Reports
Inventory of geological data and collections at the Maryland Geological Survey
2009, Hennessee, E.L.; Shelton, D.
File Reports, Coastal and Estuarine Geology, File Report 2009-04
Abstract
The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) shares the concerns of other agencies and organizations engaged in geological research – that geoscience collections and data are valuable in their own right, beyond the lifetime of the projects during which they are collected or acquired, and that special efforts are required to preserve them.
In its initial efforts to systematize the preservation of its geological holdings, MGS (1) apprised its scientific and technical staff of the need and reasons for data preservation, the status of data preservation at the Survey, and the role of MGS vis-à-vis the national data preservation efforts, (2) identified and broadly described the geoscience collections and data currently in its possession and (3) entered information about the nature, size, condition, and accessibility of its 26 permanent collections into both a newly developed internal database and the NGGDPP’s Collections Inventory of the National Catalog.
Over the course of the past year, MGS evaluated repository infrastructure and collection storage, condition, access and usage. In the process the Survey managed to match its collections to NGGDPP’s collection categories, fully justified the need for an internal data preservation database, and began to understand some of the challenges posed by systematic data preservation. In short, MGS has completed the first steps in building what it hopes will become a first-rate repository that effectively serves the larger geoscience community in Maryland and beyond.
