Nota preliminar sobre o desenvolvimento de uma base de dados a disponibilizar online para o ensino e divulgação da Geologia - a coleção nacional de mineralogia do Museu Geológico

Science museums are usually seen as spaces for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, they are also spaces for creating new knowledge and training scientists (Delicado, 2008). Regarding the dissemination of the scientific knowledge, internet is a new way for easy and continuous update of the information, approaching the user and the museum, overcoming the physical, geographic and temporal barriers (Pinho, 2007). Moreover, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) make the work of inventorying, cataloguing, collection management and dissemination quite easy. Regarding this, ICT are useful and dynamic tools for the generation and circulation of teaching resources on Geological Museum national mineralogy collection most of which are stored and inaccessible to the general public. Being the minerals heap composed by hundreds of samples, the development of a relational database seems to be the best way of compiling, organizing and reaching the information produced by the minerals characterization. So, using the basic features of Microsoft Access database along with some elementary scripts in Visual Basic it will be possible to access the multiple information generated for each mineral. By this means, students, teachers and general public can access all the data using an interactive platform which enhances the Geology teaching and dissemination opportunities.