What does the future hold for mindat.org?

This all depends on how well we can fund our operations. We rely on your support to continue to operate, so all of these future goals depend on you.

Site improvements

We know that the mindat.org website is sometimes slow or unavailable. This upsets us as much as it does you, but is a factor of the amount of people using the site and the hosting environment we can afford. To build a more resilient system that works 99.9% of the time instead of 98% of the time requires a significant investment of at least double what we currently pay for our hosting, along with some significant set-up costs.

We also plan to significantly improve all the searching systems within the site. We know that some searches are not as easy as they should be. The more data we collect the more difficult it is to search, and the search algorithms have to evolve and adapt as we grow.

Events

Expect to see mindat.org at more broad geological and industry events, not just mineral shows. Geological Conferences, Mining Industry events, Gemology events are all areas where we will be taking a much more active role in the future.

Library

We have plans to build and maintain a massive working library to help us collect and organize the world's mineral information. Read more here.

Offices

Mindat.org may have two international offices within the next two years, one in London UK (for software development and site management) and another in Tucson, Arizona (for donation management, volunteer workspace and to host the library). The Tucson office is being offered by the University of Arizona Mineral Museum as part of their new building - the old Pima Courthouse.