6. Information and Documentation

6.1 Documentation

The main objective of the ICRAF documentation service is to identify and acquire information relevant to the needs of agroforestry researchers and development planners. The staff in the documentation service continue manually to screen the references appearing in several of the relevant Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (CABI) journals on a monthly basis. A computerized current awareness service also complements this activity. The CABI and AGRIS (FAO) data bases are searched on this basis. These services, together with other sources, contribute to the identification and acquisition of over 150 titles relevant to agroforestry per month. All of these titles were analyzed by the ICRAF documentalists for input to the computerized ICRAF library catalogue. Over 2000 titles were described in 1986.

An IDRC project, Agroforestry Information for Sub-Sahara Africa, which began in late 1985, provided for material assistance and for one documentalist, who was hired in May 1986.

An IBM PC AT microcomputer with a 30-megabyte hard disk and a printer was acquired. A new software package for the management of bibliographic data bases was installed and now replaces Knowledge Man. Micro CDS/ISIS, produced by UNESCO, offers a user-friendly interface, extremely fast data retrieval and easy presentation, and printing of references satisfying particular selection criteria. The complete computerized library catalogue was transferred from the Knowledge Man relational data base environment to Micro CDS/ISIS. Over 7800 records were involved, and this is the total number of records in the data base at present. Very specific access to references can be achieved with indices of species and subject descriptors, countries and geographic regions, authors, key words in titles, publishers, language and ecological zone.

A description of the use of microcomputers for bibliographic information management was prepared and submitted to the ICRAF Working Paper Series. It is based on a presentation on the subject given to an ECA/PADIS (Economic Community of Africa/ Pan African Development Information System) workshop in April 1986.

An abstract bibliography was prepared using the Micro CDS/ ISIS package. The bibliography contains 531 entries with abstracts and was edited as at the end of the year. A classification scheme was prepared to organize the subject matter. The scheme is based on the experience acquired by the documentation staff in answering requests for information on agroforestry and in consultation with ICRAF scientific staff. Delays in the preparation of the computerized version of the bibliography and in editing meant that a first draft was ready only at the end of the year. A review of the literature on agroforestry, "Agroforestry: general concepts, early work and current initiatives" was prepared by the Programme Coordinator (R. Labelle) and refers to over 100 references on the subject.

The question and answer service continued throughout 1986, with over 160 registered requests for information on agroforestry at the end of the year. A current awareness service, SDI (selective dissemination of information), on agroforestry produced by ICRAF documentation staff for about 100 AFRENA scientists in Eastern & Southern Africa was initiated late in the year. A letter offering the service was sent to these scientists.

Compact disk read only memory (CD/ROM) technology was examined as a more effective means of disseminating information about agroforestry. Discussions have begun with CABI to investigate the possibility of testing a subset of their agricultural data base using ICRAF microcomputers. If the technology is appropriate, then it could provide an alternative to the method presently in use of providing current awareness services to agroforestry researchers worldwide, that is, by relying on profiles that are written up by operators overseas. CD/ROM will also permit on-line access to major data bases. This will be most useful to determine the nature of agroforestry information stored in these bibliographic data bases and to more fully and readily exploit these sources of information.

Discussions with CABI are under way for the joint publication of an agroforestry abstracts journal. Consultations have already begun to determine the scope of coverage by the journal, the key words to be used and the allocation of tasks between CABI and ICRAF documentalists.

In 1986, ICRAF submitted 11 titles to the AGRIS data base.