In addition, they collect, reproduce, and maintain a national inventory of mine maps and supporting documentation for private and public interests.

A repository was set up at a BOM office in Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre,[8] Pennsylvania and covered all states east of the Mississippi River with the exception of Louisiana and Minnesota.

In 1982 the responsibility of maintaining the repository and its staff was formally transferred to DOI's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

The information is made available to federal and state geological surveys, state mining bureaus, mining companies, oil and gas companies, conservationists, research and planning organizations, water pollution boards, city and industrial planners, highway engineers, building contractors, real estate developers and private citizens.

The NMMR contains digital and microfilm maps of surface and underground coal, metal, and non-metal mines throughout the United States.

[13] The NMMR utilizes different types of scanning equipment[14] to facilitate archiving mine maps made available in a variety of media.

Small, portable aperture card scanners are shipped to state agencies as part of an extensive initiative to map underground mines.