Geological Collections Databases, GIS and the WWW
Joint Meeting: Geological Curators Group and Geoscience Information Group
15th May 2002, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
10:00-11:00 Coffee and setting up of demonstrations. Morning session - Keynote Speakers 11:00-11:30 Patrick Bell - British Geological Survey, Keyworth pdbe AT bgs.ac.uk British Geological Survey's Geoscience Data Index - a web-based spatial index to our data holdings The British Geological Survey (BGS) is the UK's National Centre for earth science information and maintains a vast store of data and information that has been gathered since 1835. Various datasets are obtained under statutory requirements such as the Mining Industry Act 1926 and the Water Resources Act 1991. BGS data and information assets are progressively being made available in digital form. For a number of years the BGS has used a digital Geoscience Data Index (GDI), restricted to use by BGS staff. The GDI shows extents of available dataset coverage in Great Britain and the surrounding seas, drawn against a topographical map background. With the advent of web-based GIS technology (specifically ESRI's ArcIMS) it has been possible to allow free public access to these maps via the Internet. The BGS internet Geoscience Data Index (iGDI) is a web site designed to fulfil this need, and is in line with the broad policies of Open Government, Modernising Government and e-Government. The site allows users to search for information about BGS data collections covering the UK and other areas world wide. Access is free, the interface is easy to use, and it has been developed to enable users to check coverage of different types of data and find out some background information about the data. More detailed information can be obtained by further enquiry to specified contacts. Borehole record ordering can be carried out directly via the web site. 11:30-12:00 Adrian Rissoné - Natural History Museum. ar AT nhm.ac.uk The Palaeontology Department specimen cataloguing system. The Natural History Museum in London has experimented for many years with a view to establishing a database of at least the most recently accessioned and most important of its 70 million specimens. A system for the Palaeontology Department based on the "extended" or "nested" relational database product UniData was written in-house and installed in 1993. In 1998 the Museum set about the task of finding a Year 2000 compliant, "industrial strength", enhanced replacement for this application. It was decided to commission an application expanding upon the use of nested relational technology and the extended product set offered by the company owning UniData (now part of IBM Data Management). The old application had a very powerful, flexible but unfriendly Report Writer written in 'C'. This has been rewritten and enhanced. The new client-server application has support for multinational character sets (Unicode) and produces output in HTML or Microsoft Word format XML documents. Output in internationally recognised XML schemas will be possible when suitable DTDs are available. The Museum is involved in several international projects to develop standards for web-enabling databases using XML - an overview of the use of XML will be given. Finally, a summary will be presented of the challenges, costs and risks of developing and implementing a sophisticated collections management system. 12:00-12:30 John Faithfull - University of Glasgow Museum. Manager AT museum.gla.ac.uk 9 Years of INCA: evolution of a museum catalogue 12:45-14:00 Buffet Lunch, with demonstrations. Afternoon Session (15 mins per speaker with 3 mins for discussion) Tim McCormick - British Geological Survey, Keyworth tmcm AT bgs.ac.uk Palaeosaurus The British Geological Survey biostratigraphy collections comprise the most comprehensive biostratigraphical resource relating to Britain and its continental shelf held by any organisation. The estimated three million samples are a testament to over 150 years of intense surveying and collection as well as numerous important donations. Virtually all major groups are represented, and sample types include hand specimens, core samples, slides, photographs, and thin sections. "Palaeosaurus" is an integrated biostratigraphy management system for the BGS biostratigraphy collections. It brings together for the first time information about the provenance, systematics, stratigraphy, citations, loan status and location of fossil samples. It supports links to other relevant BGS data resources. Palaeosaurus is designed to be a single point of contact for basic information on all BGS fossil holdings. Some of the data for a given sample are static, such as who collected it and when. However other data are potentially subject to change, for example the stratigraphical attributes and systematic relationships of the fossil. In order for a palaeontological database to remain viable in the long term, great care needs to be taken in designing structures for storing this kind of mutable data. Some approaches will be outlined. Paul Britton - Stratadata stratadata AT dial.pipex.co.uk Biostratigraphic information management in the oil and gas industry and links to the www. StrataBugs is a software package in widespread use throughout the oil and gas industry for the capture, storage, display and transfer of biostratigraphic data, in the form of microscope observations of selected well bore samples. Substantial collections of well occurrence data have been captured over the last decade through user input and transfer of company legacy data bases. Most companies do not have the resources to link these data with reference "type collections". With the increasing availability of the www to end users, there exists a potential to link these private data stores with publicly available collections, with "web services" implemented using XML. The benefits to end users would be improved quality control and nomenclatural standardisation, whilst showcasing collections data to a wide audience. Jana Horak - National Museum of Wales. Jana.Horak AT nmgw.ac.uk National Museums & Galleries of Wales; Geological Database: accountability for collections vs. public access. The NMGW Geological collections are documented using SnBase, the natural Science version of Mobydoc's Micromuseé database. To date almost 100% of item registered specimens have been documented, including 32,000 minerals; 7,500 petrological thins section: 20,000 rocks (including cores, meteorites): 180,000 fossils. The database was initially acquired to address issues of best practice in collection management and accountability and not as a tool for public access. Initial data input was undertaken from existing records, and with the completion of computerisation of mineral and petrological collections, audit programmes have been initiated to verify, upgrade and update documentation. The current system although capable of being used for public access, has not been used in this format to date. Instead the intention is to transfer Welsh data to a GIS to enable a more user-friendly public access interface. Selected archaeological collections within NMGW have already successfully piloted this scheme. Mandy Edwards - University of Manchester Museum aedwards AT fs1.ge.man.ac.uk BASELINE - Keeping track of space and time. Training in Earth Sciences requires students to develop a broad and substantive understanding of the fundamental processes that underpin the subject area and to develop a subject specific database as well as to develop key skills such as research project design and implementaion. The unique feature of Earth Sciences relative to other scientific disciplines, is that geoscience datasets are relatively incomplete compared to those in Chemistry and Physics. In addition they encompass more scales of observation (typically>8 orders of magnitude ), contain both temporal and spatial data and contain only products of processes rather than both products and reactants. Together these characteristics mean that performing geoscience investigations in a scientificlly rigorous manner is unusually challenging. In order to maximise the value of their data geosscientists nearly always have to consider the spatial and temporal context of the information they have gathered both in terms of the problem being investigated and in terms of the analytical procedure being utilised to investigate the problem. Baseline was created to sort and store a variety of temporal and spatial data in a logical way. Kevin Walsh - Oxford University Museum. kevin.walsh AT university-museum.oxford.ac.uk Collections Online at the Oxford University Museum - turning our collections management databases into a web resource. Oxford University Museum of Natural History is a designated museum with world class collections in four areas: geology (mainly palaeontology), mineralogy (including petrology), entomology and zoology. Collections management uses Microsoft Access databases, but individual fields and the database structure are the responsibility of curatorial staff in each collection. While these do vary across the museum to suit the needs of each specialisation there are several core fields. We are in the process of using data from the collections management databases to build up online searchable databases for various users. These will complement webpages describing each discipline (e.g. www.oum.ox.ac.uk/petcolls.htm) and other pages that focus on individual objects and collections (e.g. www.oum.ox.ac.uk/onlinedb/geotypes/geointro.htm). Some databases will be linked to educational web pages aimed at the general public, or specific groups such as school children and undergraduates. The online databases differ from the management databases in several ways, such as: · the online versions are not updated in real time but periodically new versions are posted · the online versions contains only the fields that are thought to be useful to the end-user and do not contain storage information and the like · images (as html file links) are incorporated into some of the online databases · only those databases that are up-to-date and fully checked are converted for online use. The process of changing an Access database into an online version involves converting the data to PostgresSQL for the university's Linux webserver. CGI scripts using PERL are written to generate web pages with search results. Suzanne Miller - National Museum of Scotland s.miller AT nms.ac.uk National Museums of Scotland Petrology & Mineralogy Database - a custom-built Adlib system The NMS has recently purchased a new database with the ultimate aim of making records of its entire collections in addition to using the database as a public resource. The chosen database system has had to fulfil the needs of the very varied collections of NMS - including geological material, palaeontological and zoological specimens, historical and ethnological artefacts as well as images, photographic and paper archives. "Adlib" was seen as being one of the more flexible systems available and, although perhaps not absolutely ideal for all areas of the collections, a good compromise that would satisfy more than the basic requirements of care, accountability and accessibility. The petrological and mineralogical requirements will be discussed and the new Min & Pet front-end demonstrated. 15:45 Tea. Tours of the collections available until 18:00 For details about how to get to the BGS or on local accommodation see the BGS website http://www.bgs.ac.uk/contacts/offices.html. If you have any other queries on local arrangements then contact Mike Howe at the address below. There will be a meeting fee of £10 to cover tea, coffee and a buffet lunch. Meeting Conveners: Mike Howe and Garry Baker, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG. 0115 9363105. mhowe AT bgs.ac.uk, grba AT bgs.ac.uk. Giles Miller, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD. 020 7942 541. G.Miller AT nhm.ac.uk.
