Thoughts on Search etc.:

Chemical Analysis:

Chemical analysis seach needs to be possible by simply specifying any sample parameters plus the analysis material. All analyses have an analysis material but not necessarily any specific composition so specifying the composition is a backward way to find chemical analyses.

An example: Rock Type=Schist, Metamorphic Region=Adirondacks, Analysis Material=garnet.

Beyond this, analyses can easily be sorted in the table by other parameters and so other possible search parameters may not be necessary (other metadata, i.e. method, current, etc.)

Keyword search:

A keyword search should be added to find other types of data. Whether this should be limited to comments/description and samples only or samples+images+analyses is up for discussion.

Images:

Searching needs to be redesigned to allow users to search the database for images. We have stored the necessary metadata for images to allow seach by image type and other parameters.

A search interface that covers image search with results given in a table of thumbnails with links to the associated sample/subsample would be ideal. This could be done with a third, image radio button (samples, chemical analyses, images) and a new tab for image parameters/metadata would do the trick.The necessary search parameters should be:

1. Image type 2. Element (for x-ray maps)

This really should do it.

Bibliographic searches:

Searching for publicaiton data should be possible using first author's last name, title keyword, or year...

This would be added to the provenance search tab as fields: First author's last name, title

(presently the "year" is not a individually stored parameter, and search may need to do something like: "Journal" contains the text [1978,].