One very long slow move - with benefits: Ireland's national geological collection.

Abstract

This paper outlines the benefits of a protracted move, over many years, accompanied by a concurrent documentation project, for the geological collections of the National Museum of Ireland. Long neglected, and in storage for nearly 60 years, the collections have now been unpacked and moved to one site in the Collections Resource Centre, near Swords in County Dublin. An Inventory documentation project has collated basic data on the collection into an Adlib database, but all the physical storage and organisation has been improved in the process. The long, slow, careful move has made the collections fully accessible for the first time in around a century. It has opened up the potential to make further significant improvements in collections care, access, data records and use in exhibitions and research.