[Nhcoll-l] Workflows, Standards & Vocabularies for Digitising Geoscience Collections

[Michael Howe - BGS]

Hi NHCOLLers,

The UK Geoscience Collections Community has come together to evaluate the various workflows, equipment, standards and vocabularies used for digitising geoscience collections and make best practice recommendations, highlighting gaps needing further work..

We are aware in general of various workflows referenced on the DiSSCo-UK, DiSSCo-EU and iDigBio websites, but given the wide range of geological samples to be digitised, we would appreciate your help. We would like to hear from digitisers about the actual workflows, equipment and standards they are using - those that work well and those that cause problems.

We need workflows that cover the wide range of material types in geological collections,

*       Rock & mineral hand specimens
*       Meteorites
*       Mineral micromounts
*       Thin sections, thick sections, wafers, polished blocks, etc.
*       Borehole cores, samples and cuttings
*       Vertebrate fossils - both mounted and discrete bones
*       Micro-vertebrate fossils
*       Invertebrate fossils
*       Slide sections of fossils - e.g. corals
*       Micropalynology, including acritarchs, etc
*       "Calc-micro", including conodonts, etc.
*       SEM stubs
*       Etc.


Many collections (e.g. herbarium sheets, pinned insects) can be imaged first and the metadata extracted from the images. In contrast,  geological samples often hide their labels and are probably best databased before being imaged - indeed, many collections already have digital catalogues. Are most institutions imaging or databasing first? (Presumably barcoding before imaging? - Data Matrix, QR or other barcode format?)

Vocabs are also a problem. The British Geological Survey makes a number of controlled vocabularies available (e.g. RCS - Rock Classification System and the BGS Stratigraphic Lexicon) - but these are UK centric and UK Collections are worldwide. What vocab systems are in popular use?


If all goes to plan, we intend to produce a report in a year or so detailing our recommendations, which we will be happy to share with the community.

Many thanks in advance for your help,

I know this is a big ask!

Mike



Dr Mike Howe
Principal Curator

Working days: Tuesdays - Thursdays
 Phone: 0115 9363105  Email: mhowe at bgs.ac.uk
Web: http://www.bgs.ac.uk/staff/profiles/3858.html
GIH030  - British Geological Survey
Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG



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