Cataloguing geo-mineralogical heritage in museum contexts through national standards. The Italian scenario

Natural history museums are home to valuable mineralogical and geological collections representing a country’s geo-mineralogical heritage. Collaboration between scientists and museologists is crucial in preserving, studying, and enhancing this irreplaceable evidence of our past. Despite the nearly century-long international standardization of descriptive cataloguing in other cultural contexts (e.g., libraries), natural history museums have not yet adopted worldwide recognized standards for documenting their collections. The goal of this presentation is to provide an overview of the current progress in cataloguing the Italian geo-mineralogical heritage in accordance with the national catalographic standards issued by the Central Institute for Cataloging and Documentation (ICCD), which is part of the Italian Ministry of Cultural (MiC). After outlining the ICCD guidelines for cataloguing mineral, rock, and meteorite collections (i.e., BNM, BNPE, and BNPL standards), this presentation delves into a few case studies sourced from the General Catalogue of Cultural Heritage website, a database managed by MiC offering open access to cataloguing records of the Italian cultural heritage. This presentation will highlight the importance of cataloguing the Italian geo-mineralogical museum collections based on the ICCD national standards. It will be shown that this catalographic system is effective in properly preserving and enhancing this unique heritage from different perspectives. In conclusion, this presentation will briefly introduce the new ICCD standard for cataloguing disused manufacturing sites (SPD), which will shed light on a lesser-known part of the national heritage, such as former mining sites.