Gems, Congress, Museums, and Maps

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Contact Jan Childress (703) 379-2480
December 1, 1997	E-mail: geotimes@agiweb.org

Gems, Congress, Museums, and Maps

The December Issue of Geotimes

ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- One of the best tours of the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals in the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History is in the December issue of Geotimes. The museum's own curators take readers on a tour through the new exhibit, a remodeling of the museum's former Restless Earth Hall. The $13 million exhibit, funded by Hooker and other donors, presents the museum's extensive gem and minerals collection in a new light.

"The exhibit no longer features row after row of specimens arranged according to the Dana System," the authors write in Geotimes. "Instead, each display now explores a special subject ... the text and interactive displays have a chatty, informal style that draws visitors easily into an investigation of the scientific concept behind each grouping." The curators offer their descriptions of the renovated exhibit hall, which opened in September 1997, along with the concepts and goals they employed in its design.

The December issue also features the start of a three-part series advising scientists on how to communicate with Congressional members and policy makers. Author Joseph A. Briskey has worked for 22 years with the U.S. Geological Survey and recently returned to geologic research after working nine years as a program and operations manager and two years as a Brookings Institution LEGIS Congressional Fellow. During the 104th Congress (1995-96), he served as a legislative assistant on the personal staff of Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho).

The first part of his series, "The Nature of the Beast," offers scientists a realistic view of politicians and the system in which they work. "The day-to-day work of members of Congress is, and must be, devoted chiefly to solving the problems of their constituents, thus ensuring their own reelection," Briskey says. "Scientists must have something to offer that is clearly relevant to people's everyday lives and problems," he adds. Briskey's first article is followed in January with part two, "Contacting the Beast." Part three will be published in April.

Museum consultant Robert Mac West contributes a special guide to museums across the country that offer in-depth natural history displays. Also, David R. Soller and Thomas M. Berg give readers a progress report on the National Geologic Map Database, the project that was mandated by the 1992 National Geologic Mapping Act. Soller works with the USGS and Berg works with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological Survey.

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