Glossary

Would it be possible to add the glossary as one of the buttons on the left hand side? I noticed today that there were new glossary entries, and never knew mindat had a glossary!

Maybe I am not looking in the right place; I even opened up the mindat handbook and the glossary wasn't mentioned there either.
It would have been very handy a few years ago when I was trying to figure out what metamict meant!

I too have been looking for a link to the glossary without success...

The glossary can be found among the "search" options. Becky

Oh, in the pull down list in the "search for" under "Search Mindat". I've always looked over at the links at the left. I've never actually used the "search for" option, I always just type something in the locality of mineral cells below. That's an awfully obscure place to put a link to the glossary. I too suggest it have it's own link on the left column of the home page somewhere.

Just to let you know this is a very new feature that we are still working on. Once launched it should be easier to find.

Some people have mentioned there are other glossaries. That may be true, but ours will be the best :)

Jolyon

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Jolyon Ralph
Some people have mentioned there are other glossaries.

Umm yes; I have mentioned it twice now and both times it has been pulled, with no reason given.

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Jolyon Ralph
That may be true

No Jolyon, that is true (the websites I provided show that).

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Jolyon Ralph
but ours will be the best :)

Well, here's the chance to prove it, but it will be hard to beat the original!

I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest here, I just want an explanation as to why my informitive posts get pulled and why there is a perception of fear and evilness of these well done dictionaries/glossaries. If someone can give me an honest answer instead of just erasing any mention of them, I'll drop it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2012 01:00AM by Paul Brandes.

It's not very fair to those people, including myself, putting in a lot of hard work to build the glossary here to have messages saying "you don't need to bother, there's already another glossary here and here". Actually, at least one of those you quoted uses the same source material that has formed part of our glossary here, except we are going through updating entries, adding new ones, and linking mindat pics where appropriate.

Neither are "the original", that was published by the now defunct US Bureau of Mines. Beating "the original", which is no longer maintained, is a simple task of extending or updating at least one entry!

Our glossary will be tied in directly to other mindat pages, so you can click on a heading and get information on a term. It will be a major and important part of mindat.

Jolyon

You know, a glossary button might be a good idea.

I agree that our glossary is not what it should be. All you have to do is to look at the original original, namely A Dictionary of Mining Mineral and
Related Terms published by the United States, Department of the Interior, Bureau of mines in 1968 and you can see that the glossary we uses is cut down by about half or perhaps even more from the original. But I don't think this "original" glossary/dictionary is available in any kind of digital format that could be integrated here short of a lot to time scanning the original and converting it to a digital format and then making sure that the OCR soft ware didn't make a hash of things. At least the librarian at the Unites States Geological Survey didn't now of any digital copies of it. I would like nothing better than to find someone with lots of time to add all the terms and definitions in this book that are missing in our glossary. But with time ours will get better, and it is handy to have it here with all the other mineralogical information that we have.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

We took our core data from the 1996 edition, rather than the 1968 edition.

From the introduction to the 1996 edition:

"The Bureau's development of mining dictionaries dates back to Albert Fay's Glossary of the Mining and Mineral Industry, which first appeared in December 1918. That glossarycontained about 18,000 terms. In 1968, the Bureau published A Dictionary of Mining,Mineral, and Related Terms, edited by Paul W. Thrush, with about 55,000 terms. The1968 dictionary contained many new mining terms and terms from such related areas as metallurgy, ceramics, and glassmaking. That edition was as complete as possible with regard to technical and regional terms, historical terms, foreign terms that attained general usage in the United States, and terminology from the entire English-speaking world. For the past three decades that work has stood as the definitive authority on mineral-related terms.

The 1996 edition reflects a departure from the previous one in scope and in format. This edition, containing some 28,500 terms, is not meant to be exhaustive in its coverage. It focuses on mining-related terms and excludes such related categories as ceramics, glass,metallurgy, petroleum, and other specialized disciplines."

Thats OK, but I think most people would prefer to have the 1968 Glossary with its more extensive listings. I know I would and have it within arms reach when ever I am working on the computer.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

As far as I know there's no digital version of the 1968 edition available for us to work with.

The librarian of the US Geological Survey didn't know of any either. If we add the missing terms and definitions, I think it will be a slow process.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Ok, fair enough Jolyon!!

However, it was never of question of "why bother" but rather just a heads up that until Mindat's glossary is complete (or at least workable), here are a couple other options already out there that can be used until such time. I do like the idea of linking photos to the Mindat glossary as then users can read the text and actually see an example and if you need some photos of examples let me know as I might be able to help.

Just out of curiousity, who would I contact to add terms (with references) to the glossary?

"Just out of curiousity, who would I contact to add terms (with references) to the glossary? " - A manager