Online Ecological and Environmental Data

Citation

Voigt, K. (2005), "Online Ecological and Environmental Data", Online Information Review, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 329-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520510607687

This collection contains six articles on ecological and environmental data and databases. Different experts describe innovative projects from several US institutions that make environmental and ecological information available online. The articles are mainly written by librarians and information specialists. A common theme in these papers is the interdisciplinary involvement of researchers who produce and use data in the fields of environmental and ecological studies.

The article from Downs and Chen, “Cooperative design, development and management of interdisciplinary data to support the global environmental change research community”, describes the organisation, cooperation and project management of a scientific data centre which focuses on the topic of global change. Examples of several databases and services are explained and their URLs are given. Gene Major's article, “Beyond bibliography: a dynamic approach to the cataloging of multidisciplinary environmental data for global change research”, describes in detail the NASA Global Change Master Directory (GCMC). The topic of acid rain information is discussed by Frederick Stoss in “A national environmental data network revealed through the study of acid rain”. Frame et al. describe the National Biological Infrastructure (NBII) in their article “Information science and technology developments within the National Biological Information Infrastructure”. The NBII is designed to address issues on the national scale, and through international partnerships.

The article “Syracuse Research Corporation's Chemical Information Databases: extractions and compilation of data related to environmental fate and exposure”, by Sarah Rosenberg et al., addresses several chemical databases, e.g. the Environmental Fate Database, PHYSPROP (physical property database), TSCATS (test submissions under the Toxic Substance Control Act), SOLVDB (solvents database), SMILECAS (simplified molecular input line entry system notation database), Chemical Pointers (pointers to databases and regulatory lists), and Global Warming Potential. Leonora Oftedahl briefly describes in “Convergence and dissemination: a brief history and description of the StreamNet Project’, a data source on fish and fisheries. An important factor in this project is the incorporation of grey literature into the data source.

The articles are of high scientific quality, addressing the rarely published topic of information on ecological and environmental issues. It has to be stated, however, that the book is US‐biased. Environmental databases and data approaches of major international environmental organisations and other nations, e.g. Europe, Japan, and Australia, are not covered. It would be advisable to mark this in the title or subtitle: “Approaches in the US”. A further recommendation would be to publish a second volume on the same topic with resources and approaches of other countries.

The book is valuable not only as an information resource for environmental and ecological data and databases but also as a recommended guide for those who are operating or planning to develop environmental data sources. The book is written not only for information specialists and librarians, but also for computer scientists, biologists, chemists and others interested scientists.