According to the American Library Association, there are an estimated 121,785 libraries of all kinds currently in the US. The Dallas Public Library circulates more than 8 million items every year and has 30 service points throughout the city. Its central facility, J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, was one of the first libraries in the country to have an online catalog system and audiovisual capabilities.
Located in this central location is a state-of-the-art petroleum research facility called The Nancy and Jake L. Hamon Oil & Gas Resource Center. The center provides free access to valuable industry information resources as well as a comprehensive and current selection of print and electronic materials with emphasis on investments, company information, financial management, industry surveys, and statistics within the oil and gas industry and the broader energy industry.
Some of the sources available are the International Petroleum Encyclopedia, SPE Conference Proceedings, Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter, US Lease Price Report, and property and lease ownership maps.
Teaming up
Students in Oklahoma had the opportunity to learn about the oil and gas industry at neighborhood libraries when Chesapeake Energy Corp. joined the Metropolitan Library System to present "This School Rocks!" The companywide program is geared towards teaching students about oil and natural gas. Industry professionals conduct hour-long, interactive presentations in classrooms or in other group settings. Classroom presentations give students an understanding of the industry in an engaging way, reiterate safety messages as many students come into contact with industry equipment near their schools, homes, or other local areas, spark student interest in a career in the industry, and educate and advocate for compressed natural gas.
Strictly industry
The Ontario Oil, Gas & Salt Resources Library is a facility for the study of the subsurface geology, petroleum, salt, and underground hydrocarbon storage resources of Ontario. The library specializes in the collection, generation, and distribution of information on the subsurface geology, petroleum, and salt resources of that province. This includes information on Ontario's paleozoic geology, oil and gas exploration, drilling, production, disposal of oil-field fluids, natural gas storage reservoirs, solution mining of salt, and subsurface storage of hydrocarbons in solution mined caverns.
The OGSR Library houses cutting samples from more than 13,000 wells, cores from nearly 1,000 wells, and file information on more than 20,000 wells. The files include details on well history, construction, location, stratigraphy, oil, gas, and water-bearing intervals. Included in well records are also geophysical logs, core analyses, and chemical analyses of subsurface fluid samples. An extensive collection of publications on subsurface geology is also available. File data and samples from drilling operations are confidential for one year after total depth (TD) date for exploratory wells and 30 days for all other wells.
Core and cutting samples from Ontario are processed on the premises and are stored in racks and cabinets within the sample storage area of the library. For processing purposes there is a cutting, washing, and drying machine, and 14-in. and 6-in. diameter diamond blade saws for slabbing of core. A comfortable, climate-controlled workroom is available for use in viewing samples. The room is equipped with a roller table, semiprivate cubicles, open work tables, binocular microscopes, a trinocular petrographic microscope, and geological supplies. All companies that drill wells licensed under the Oil, Gas & Salt Resources Act are required to collect cuttings samples of bedrock from the entire length of the drill hole at 3-m intervals, and deliver these samples to the library. Any core recovered from a well is required to be submitted to the library within a year after the TD date of the well.
Well operators are required to submit copies of all reports, geophysical logs, and analyses to the Ministry of Natural Resources. Copies of all reports are available at the library for public study after the confidentiality period expires.
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