Product catalogue
Breathing new life into old collections – revitalising Geoscience Australia Microscope Slide Based collections through the use of Citizen Science (Poster presentation for AGU Dec 2017)
Since soon after the federation of Australia in 1901 Geoscience Australia, and its predecessors organisations, have gathered a significant collection of microscope slide based items (including: thin sections of rock, micro and nano fossils) from across Australia, Antarctica, Papua New Guinea, the Asia Pacific region and beyond. The samples from which the microscope slides were produced have been gathered via extensive geological mapping programs, work conducted for major Commonwealth building initiatives such as the Snowy Mountain Scheme and science expeditions. The cost of recreating this collection, if at all possible, would be measured in the $100Ms (AUS) even assuming that it was still possible to source the relevant samples.
While access to these microscope slides is open to industry, educational institutions and the public it has not been easy to locate specific slides due to the management system. The management of this collection was based largely on an aged card catalogue and ledger system. The fragmented nature of the management system with the increasing potential for the deterioration of physical media and the loss of access to even some of the original contributors meant that rescue work was (and still is) needed urgently.
Achieving progress on making the microscope slides discoverable and accessible in the current fiscally constrained environment dictated a departure from what might be considered a traditional approach to the project and saw the extensive use of a citizen science approach.
Through the use of a citizen science approach the proof of concept project has seen the transcription of some 35,000 sample metadata and data records (2.5 times our current electronic holdings) from a variety of hardcopy sources by a diverse group of volunteers. The availability of this data has allowed for the electronic discovery of both the microscope slides and their parent samples, and will hopefully lead to a greater utilisation of this valuable resource and enable new geoscientific insights from old resources.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2017-07-31T00:00:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2018-10-04T04:07:14
- Date (Revision)
- 2019-04-09T01:08:52
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/112185
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Pring, J.A.
Contributor Blewett, R.
Contributor Poignand, B.
Contributor Raymond, O.
Contributor Champion, D.C.
Contributor Bastrakova, I.V.
Contributor Evans, N.
Contributor Butler, P.
Contributor Stewart, A.
- Purpose
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Poster presentation to AGU conference Dec 2017
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Petkovski, S.
Office of the Chief Scts Internal Contact
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- Keywords
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Thin Section
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- Keywords
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Micro fossil
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- Keywords
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Citizen Science
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- Product
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
-
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
-
CC-BY
- Edition
-
4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Download the Poster (Powerpoint Presentation)
Download the Poster (Powerpoint Presentation)
- Distribution format
-
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pptx
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- OnLine resource
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Download the Poster (pdf)
Download the Poster (pdf)
- Distribution format
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pdf
-
Resource lineage
- Statement
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Not applicable
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Metadata constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/bedc2ead-ebf7-4ba7-9191-0e1975284d25
- Title
-
GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Petkovski, S.
Office of the Chief Scts Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/112185
- Date info (Creation)
- 2017-07-31T05:50:58
- Date info (Revision)
- 2017-08-27T23:59:43
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Edition date
- 2015-07-01T00:00:00
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551