LIBRARY INFORMATION SERVICES FOR EXPLORATION COMPANIES

Abstract

The increased pace of scientific research and technological development since the Second World War has resulted in an "explosion" in the amount of information being produced in scientific and technical fields. It has been calculated that the published literature of these fields doubles every ten years. Most industries have been affected by this and the petroleum exploration industry is no exception. Exploration companies are prolific producers of information, particularly that resulting from their field operations.

The information needs of the management and technical staff of exploration companies cover a very wide field of diverse material, which includes legal, financial, economic, industrial and statistical material, as well as geological and geophysical data and its interpretation. Relevant external material includes information on exploration methods and equipment, laws and regulations governing exploration in Australia, and the status and activities of competitors in the industry. All this comes from many and varied sources, and may be in conventional forms (books, journals, maps, etc) or in forms peculiar to the exploration industry itself (e.g. seismic sections and well logs). Internal information is even more complex in content and form, comprising field data of all kinds, reports, maps and diagrams, seismic sections and records, well logs, aerial photographs, and many other items.

The difficulties presented by such a mass of varied and complex material are best overcome by the establishment of a "special library" in the charge of a professional librarian. A "special library" is one serving a specialist clientele and covering a particular field of knowledge. Professional librarians - or information officers - have been trained to gather, index, store, retrieve and disseminate information of all kinds; these tasks comprise the routine work of a special library. They are performed by adapting the standardised guidelines of librarianship to suit the specialised nature of the industry being served. Librarians are also trained in such tasks as literature research and compilation of information dossiers.

The establishment of a special library under a qualified librarian provides an exploration company with:

a centre for the integration of all kinds of information material; and

an active information service.

It thus enables a company to make the maximum use of all available information which may be relevant to its purposes.