State of the art of geoscience libraries and information services
Geoscience libraries and geoscience information services are closely related. Both are trying to meet the needs of the geoscientists for information and data. Both are also being affected by many trends: increased availability of personal computers; decreased costs of machine readable storage; increased availability of maps in digital format (Pallatto, 1986); progress in graphic displays and in developing Geographic Information System, (GIS) (Kelly and Phillips, 1986); development in artificial intelligence; and the availability of new formats (e.g. CD-ROM). Some additional factors are at work at changing the role of libraries: libraries are coming to recognize the impossibility of collecting everything and the validity of Bradford's Law unobtrustive studies of library reference services have pointed out that only 50% of the questions are answered correctly it is clear that the number of databases is increasing although good figures for specifically geoscience databases are not available; lists of numeric database are beginning to appear; evaluative (as opposed to purely descriptive) reviews of available bibliographic databases are beginning to appear; more and more libraries are getting online catalogs and results of studies of users of online catalog are being used to improve catalog design; and research is raising consciousness about the value of; and research is raising consciousness about the value of information. All these trends are having or will have an effect on geoscience information.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-76DP00789
- OSTI ID:
- 5574460
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-86-1284C; CONF-8606122-1; ON: DE86011188
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 3. international conference on geoscience information, Adelaide, Australia, 1 Jun 1986; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Operation of a Public Geologic Core and Sample Repository in Houstion, Texas
NATIONAL GEOSCIENCE DATA REPOSITORY SYSTEM PHASE III: IMPLEMENTATION AND OPERATION OF THE REPOSITORY