GUIDELINES FOR THE CURATION OF GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS

DOCUMENTATION
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
A museum curator is in essence a warehouseman, whose job it is to receive, store
and safeguard objects, to locate them accurately and to make them available. As
a customer of a warehouse, one would normally expect to receive any item from a
list of thousands within minutes, or to be told it is out of stock, on order, or
discontinued.
Though a geological curator performs similar duties there are certain
differences that make his work more complicated. Where the good warehouseman
ensures the efficient turnover of commercially disposable goods, the curator
is the permanent custodian of material which has been acquired without any
profit motive. Moreover, all his specimens are different in some respect (and do
not arrive conveniently labelled) and the categories of information about his
collections are far greater in number than any warehouse material.
Though these differences are important, the parallels remain and in their
analagous position we should expect of a curator all that we expect of a
warehouseman, as a minimum requirement. Good documentation is the key to
fulfilling such an expectation.
DOCUMENTATION IN THE MUSEUM
Specimen documentation has been defined by the Museums Documentation
Association as "the information about the items in a museum collection".
(MDA 1981). Roberts (1982) lists 73 component activities, many overlapping,
which may contribute to this information. Wherever possible, the use of terms in
these Guidelines, and in particular in this Part, is consistent with the definitions
provided by Roberts but in some cases differs.
It should be emphasised that these Guidelines are not intended to be
line-by-line instructions to a documentation system; but should be read as
guidance to a principled approach to good practice. Therefore do not look for
decisions on the exact implementation of the recommendations made, except
where such decisions reflect directly on specimen or information security.
THE PRINCIPLES OF DOCUMENTATION
Proper documentation ensures that a curator can quickly discover the complete
history of a specimen, its identity and its whereabouts. In practice, these concepts
can be embodied in a list of 'musts'.
It must be possible to locate every specimen.
Any information about each specimen must be recorded and its accurate
retrieval ensured.
Every specimen must be uniquely identifiable by means of a permanently
attached number.
Every specimen must be identified and classified to degrees appropriate to
circumstances.
Every significant event affecting a specimen must be recorded.