Understanding geological specimen use for effective digitisation strategies
Rachel Walcott, Adam Mansur · Rocks, Minerals, and Metadata: Integrating Earth Sciences into the TDWG Community
The short versionEvidence from inquiries, loans and publications shows geological specimens have diverse, sometimes unexpected uses, which should shape which data are digitised first.
What this was about
Rachel Walcott presented early results from pooling data from three institutions (National Museums Scotland, Smithsonian Mineral Sciences and NHM London) to quantify how abiotic geological collections are used, as input to digitisation priorities. Smithsonian inquiry forms show MIDS-level basics dominate searches but subcollection-specific fields have a substantial long tail; loans show meteorites and minerals are heavily sought while rocks decline over time; NHM loan purposes show about 40% 'predicted' uses (exhibition, outreach) and a wide variety of others, with very little for climate change. She concluded that images are used more than expected, MIDS elements are essential, and geological context (e.g. hydrothermal veins, pegmatites) is a key subject-specific element the mineralogy extension should support.
Why it matters. Provides rare quantitative evidence for prioritising what to digitise in abiotic geology collections, including challenging the assumption that climate research is a major user.
In the room
- Geological (non-paleo) collections are small in object numbers but diverse; mineral specimens usually contain several species plus analytical daughter samples.
- Evidence sources (paper records, inquiry books, database mining) each have biases and are hard to link.
- Uses include both predicted reuse (exhibition, teaching, calibration standards sent worldwide by the Smithsonian) and new uses (e.g. heavy rare-element concentration).
- Smithsonian inquiry forms: basic MIDS-level elements are most requested, but subcollection-specific options show a long tail of use.
- Loans: meteorites are highly sought (small samples used), minerals often, rocks increasingly less.
- NHM loan purposes (850 loans): about 40% predicted uses; many diverse uses from medical to archaeological to materials science; climate change is a very small share.
- A nearest-neighbour analysis of 100 Smithsonian publications shows use from archaeology to new mineral characterisation to solar system formation.
Notable moments
Transcript
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