Breathing new life into old collections – revitalising Geoscience Australia’s Microscope Slide Based collections (AGCC 2018)

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 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. Access to these slides is open to all but it has not been easy to locate specific slides due to the largely ledger and card catalogue management 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. Through the use of citizen science the project has seen the transcription of some 35,000 sample metadata and data records from a variety of hardcopy sources by a diverse group of volunteers. The availability of these 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.