Reports
Metadata creation for several of the Maryland Geological Survey's geological and geophysical collections (2010-2011)
2011, Hennessee, E.L.; Shelton, D.
File Reports, Coastal and Estuarine Geology, File Report 2011-04
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 third year as a recipient of a National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP) grant, MGS created metadata for six more of its permanent collections (three physical and three derived/indirect collections): (1) rock and mineral specimens, (2) macrofossils, (3) exhibition flasks of Maryland’s mineral commodities, (4) bathymetric surveys of various reservoirs and coastal water bodies, (5) geophysical logs for deep wells (>2,500 ft deep) in Western Maryland, and (6) a subset of enlarged (2’ x 2’) aerial photos flown in the 1950s and 1960s over the State’s barrier islands. The Survey supplied the metadata to the ScienceBase Catalog, adding a total of over 700 records.
In the course of creating metadata for the six collections, MGS confirmed, once again, 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) each collection is unique and poses its own set of problems to be resolved, and (c) if geographic coordinates are not already available for the items in a collection, acquiring them is generally the most time-consuming aspect of completing metadata. The migration of the original National Catalog to the ScienceBase Catalog led to minor changes in the data upload procedures, particularly for collections that had not already been broadly inventoried. MGS continued to find the live link, in the person of the NGGDPP’s Richard Brown, extraordinarily helpful in the process. This year, the Survey finalized a system, exemplified by this report, for creating collection-level reports, including an attachment that specifically addresses NGGDPP-compliant metadata creation (i.e., the nature and source of information for each of the metadata fields). The marginally successful attempts to document two of its digital collections revealed the extent to which the Survey is in need of a fully developed plan for the long-term preservation of such data. Finally, independently of the funded activities, MGS continued to find that a panel of outside experts is invaluable in fostering data preservation efforts.
MGS has now completed a collections inventory and honed its 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.
