Reports
Metadata creation for Maryland Geological Survey's sediment core collections
2010, Hennessee, E.L.; Shelton, D.
File Reports, Coastal and Estuarine Geology, File Report 2010-03
Abstract
The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS or “the Survey”) 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 and ensure their accessibility.
In this, its second year as a recipient of a National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP) grant, MGS documented each item in three of its sediment core collections and supplied the metadata to the National Digital Catalog of Geological and Geophysical Data, adding a total of nearly 4,700 records. The project served as a pilot – an opportunity for MGS to become familiar with (a) NGGDPP metadata requirements, (b) the amount of time involved in locating and compiling existing sources of information to satisfy those requirements, and (c) the process of converting metadata from an internal database to a format compatible with the National Catalog and submitting the converted files for upload. Originally, the Survey had planned to document only two sediment core collections – Coastal Plain cores and Atlantic continental shelf cores – consisting of a total of about 450 records. But, once MGS, in conjunction with its newly established Data Preservation Advisory Panel, decided to retain the sediment grab samples collected as part of the Chesapeake Bay Earth Science Study (CBESS), the Survey supplied metadata for those “cores” as well.
In the course of creating metadata for the three collections, MGS discovered that (a) the relative ease of broadly describing a collection masks the amount of work involved in compiling metadata for the items comprising the collection, (b) in a poorly organized repository, there is no substitute for first-hand knowledge in locating specific items or the sources of information needed to describe them, (c) providing metadata to the National Catalog, while time-consuming, is fairly easy to do, as long as sources of information for the required metadata can be found, and (d) changes in workflow at MGS should facilitate the documentation of new acquisitions. Finally, independently of the funded activities, MGS found that a panel of outside experts is invaluable in fostering data preservation efforts.
MGS has now completed a collections inventory and acquired experience in metadata creation – the initial steps in building what it hopes will become a first-rate repository that effectively serves the larger geoscience community in Maryland and beyond.
