Our portable electronic devices have memory that allows them to store thousands of pages of information in the palm of your hand. To a mineral collector a century ago, it would sound like total magic. By storing a library of field collecting sites in the palm of your hand on the Kindle or other device, you’ll never run out of places to go. Perhaps to your surprise, many great guides are available in digital format so you don’t have to bring stacks of field guides or a cumbersome library of dated, out of print texts with you when you get muddy. The rockhound ebook revolution is happening now. Let’s take a look.
Check out all the ebook field guides listed for sale on Amazon!
As you can see, there are some great choices for guides on Amazon. Just by searching “rockhounding” in the Kindle ebooks section of Amazon, I got 55 results, most of them being informative guides to collecting sites and prospecting methods. Imagine how much information you can have at your fingertips! Mineral collecting books tend to be really affordable, I had a hard time finding one that cost $20 or more. Although the feel of a paper text is nice, you can’t beat the price and field-usefulness of these ebooks.
Searching “mineral collecting” brings up less field guides, but still a lot of them. Notice a trend? Seems like digital versions of field guides are getting popular! Take advantage of this.
Searching “mineral collecting” brings up one of the best recent field guide for collecting minerals in Southern California — Rockhound Barstow: Mineral Collecting in the Mojave Desert by Justin and Brandy Zzyzx. This great guide to collecting a wide variety of material gives you tons of sites that are currently open to the general public where you can find mineral specimens and lapidary material! If you had read some field guides, they will provide directions and info on sites, but note that they are closed to collecting. This great guide gives you places in SoCal you can actually visit and dig.
Another thing to mention, are PDF files of old texts and surveys available for free online. Museums, universities, personal websites of collectors, and state and national government geological surveys are some places where you may find many old texts that have been digitized for your convenience. Looking at these types of resources is a good way to find old localities. These types of texts often include sites that the newer guides do not, and while they require a bit more fishing around in terms of actually finding them and acquiring permission, the rediscovery of an old site might produce some amazing results.
Here is an example: https://www.des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/gsu/documents/nh-mines1960.pdf
Screenshot of the PDF of this classic guide.
This classic guide by Philip Morrill, published in 1960 is notoriously difficult to find in print but known among NH collectors for the unique, often forgotten localities described within it. This book is something you probably wouldn’t want to bring into the field with you because it would be hard to get another copy. Now you can have the info in your digital library and bring it with you without trashing your copy
Ebooks and PDFs are a powerful tool for the collector looking to get themselves into new areas or sites. The advantages modern collectors have over previous generations due to the amount of technology and convenience available have allowed for a lot of new discoveries and rediscoveries of old localities. If you haven’t been using these resources and are itching to find a new place to hunt, then it’s time to step on board the digital library revolution!