So how can we continue to promote public trust, interest, and education using a museum’s mineral collection? The physical objects in the collections will likely stay protected in their cabinets for a while, but data doesn’t have to be. We should be able to trust our community scientists and professional scientists to help find cataloging mistakes, help organize images & data, and even share information (many museums are already doing this) and documents to be a part of the collection. For example, is a mineral club writing newsletters about the geology of a local mine? That should be included in the museum’s database and cross-referenced with the specimens in the collection! The museum can collaborate with the broader community like universities (e.g., RRUFF, do they still add things to the database?) and non-profits (e.g., Mindat), to make finding trusted information as easy as a google search.
Things That A Person In The Community Can Do To Help
Museums are for the community, and the community needs the museums. We need to work together.
Help Your Museum Through …