The use of hand-held infrared spectrometers in the mining and exploration industry has been a growing technology for nearly 30 years. However, the initial promise of easy and cheap mineralogy has always been an elusive goal. The main drawback over the years has been making the link from the ease of data collection (5-10 seconds per reading) through the minefield of interpretation and data handling to actually extracting useful information from the data. As a result, many IR spectrometers have been gathering dust in offices and back room cupboards.This talk will present an overview of the history of spectral geology, from its early use to the current revival of activity in this field. The presentation will also discuss the aiSIRIS system. This is a new analysis method for interpreting hand held IR spectra based on a machine learning approach, using a very large training set of real-world spectra from a wide range of geological settings. The method is built for rapid analysis of large spectral data sets, providing fast, accurate and standardised results.The opportunity presented by aiSIRIS is the easy availability of mineral data from IR spectral data. As a result, companies are now dusting down their spectrometers and getting them to work again for the use they were originally intended for. Geologists and geochemists can now focus on what they are good at, instead of also trying to be spectral geologists. CITATION: Pontual, S, 2019. Easy alteration mineralogy are we there yet and why do we need it?, in Proceedings PACRIM 2019, pp 4548 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).