DGGS working to get publications on Internet

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys reported in its June issue of “Alaska GeoSurvey News” that it has sent 50,000 pages to a scanning contractor in a project to make the division’s publications available on the Internet.

The project, begun last July, will convert several thousand DGGS publications and maps to electronic files which are text-searchable and available via the Internet. Several recently issued publications can already by downloaded at no charge, the division said, and selected documents from the scanning project should be available on the division’s web site in the near future.

Funding is being provided by the U.S. Geological Survey under the Minerals Data and Information Rescue in Alaska project.

Initial conversion of available standard-sized publications — with the exception of Territorial Department of Mines documents — was completed in late May and 33,000 pages have been returned as electronic files and are being corrected. Some 12,000 pages of territorial documents will be scanned by mid-summer.

Approximately one-third of some 1,000 maps have been scanned and are being processed.

Full implementation of web access, especially advanced search features, will be a number of months down the road.

The goal is to make information about the basic geology of Alaska available outside of research libraries in Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks. Publications from the division and its predecessors include basic information on Alaska’s geology: mineral, oil and gas, and water resources; geologic hazards; land status and use; archaeological resources.

The DGGS web page is at http://wwwdggs.dnr.state.ak.us.