Here you will find some information on my extensive database of scientific literature (botany / ecology / geography), and you can get consultation on special problems. |
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Here you will find some information on my extensive database of scientific literature (botany / ecology / geography), and you can get consultation on special problems. |
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To give an impression of the size and the subjects covered, alphabetical listings are available as sample excerpts from the database:
Listing A - B (authors alphabetically, 680 KB; as of November 2008),
Listing G - H (660 kB, as of October 2008), and
thematic excerpt Ecology and vegetation of Nepal and adjacent countries (230 kB).
An overview of the most important periodicals taken into account is shown in a listing of all journals with more than 50 records in this database.
Disciplines: plant ecology, plant geography / biogeography, phytosociology, ecology. As neighbouring disciplines also: plant systematics / taxonomy / nomenclature, physical geography, general botany.
Corresponding with my fields of work, publications on themes like vegetation dynamics, permanent plot research, alien plants / neophytes, and nature conservancy are represented strongly.
Size / citation types: The database contains some 25.000 records at present, these being monographs and text books, special papers from journals and other periodicals, but also numerous contributions from proceedings and conference reports, as well as Ph.D.-thesis and dissertations.
Temporal coverage: A high proportion of pre-1980 citations - this is, the time before the rapid developments of computer technology began seizing broad spheres of science - is a remarkable feature of the database.
The percentage of works that were published before 1980 is about 36 % (see diagram).
In some scientific disciplines, publications older than a few years are virtually "not worth a penny"; but in the sphere dealt with here, this doesn't hold true.
On one hand, the development in regional or nation-wide ecological research is much slower than, for instance, in the fields of medicine.
On the other hand, it's just the older works which build an important basis for recording and evaluation of ecological changes, as well as for taxonomic and nomenclatural studies.
Thus, publications from the above mentioned disciplines become "obsolete" consideraby slower than publications in fields like medicine or physics do.
Regarding some interesting aspects of long half-life especially of phytosociological publications (and, in a broader sense, regional-scaled ecological studies), I recommend the paper of D. Brandes - "Überblick über die Literaturinformation der Pflanzensoziologie" ("Review of literature information in phytosociology", 1982 published in Phytocoenologia 10: 375-381).
Geographical Coverage: The main focus is Central Europe (particularly Germany). Nevertheless, numerous papers and books from other parts of Europe and the world are recorded (particularly for the mediterranean region, the British Isles, as well as those concerning high mountains, or alien plants). Publications without a special geographical focus are covered as well.
Keywords: A keyword system is under construction, but it is not available online yet. Indexing of names of plants not included in the title but treated in the text of papers is on the way. You can use benefits of these additional features on demand as a further service offer.
Commercial services like
Biological Abstracts 
,
Ecological Abstracts or
Current Contents , which are updated in short intervals, usually only cover papers from journals. Moreover, most of these services are almost prohibitively expensive für private persons (and for some university institutes, too; an exception being a moderately prized pay-per-view gateway for German residents in vifabio ).
And furthermore, these reference sources normally only cover the years since about 1980, or since other starting years in the 20th century. In their data pool, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, zoology and other disciplines of biology often have a large share; vegetation geography and plant ecology only play a minor role.
Library catalogues only show the holdings of the respective library. Moreover, the titles of journal papers normally are not retrievable, but only the names of journals. Since many research reports in biology are publicated as papers in journals, these important works will not be found using such library catalogues.
Printed special bibliographies (f.e. on special research topics or certain geographical regions) are a valuable aid; but, like other scientific publications, you have to find them in good time. In this database, until now, about 500 special bibliographies are recorded.
Thus, the most important advantages of this database are:
You need a comprehensive overview of literature about a certain topic?
On Your behalf, I carry out professional retrievals for scientific literature and other sources of information (incl. internet) in the fields of botany, ecology and geography - and I deliver You an up-to-date bibliography on Your topic.
You have difficulties in getting hold of scientific literature?
I help You with obtaining scientific literature by guiding You through the complex variety of possible sources of supply (service only available in Germany). For works the copyright of which has expired delivery of copies or files is possible.
You want to administrate Your literature effectively, but You do not have suitable software for this task?
Get consulting in choosing the right reference management software, based on my experience with several commercial and shareware programms as well as web-based solutions.
Interested? ... just use one of the below mentioned adresses for requests (without obligation)!
Attention: most of the following links refer to sites in german language!
When searching for literature on plant systematics and taxonomy, the
Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature is almost indispensable, although it only comprises publications from 1971 to the present.
A literature database on central european vegetation ecology
is offered by the university library of Braunschweig.
This service contains about 12.000 citations (November 2008), and it concentrates largely on central Europe.
Regarding ecology and nature conservation with the main focus on Central Europe, the German Bundesamt für Naturschutz has built up a large literature database:
DNL-Online .
Special papers with botanical or phytogeographical subjects have a rather small share in this resource.
Among the library catalogues, a visit to
Frankfurter OPAC
is especially worthwile, regarding literature on natural history and life sciences. The Senckenbergische Bibliothek, which is situated there, and its special collections on biology/botany/zoology are of nation-wide importance, at least. Since 2007, these holdings together with catalogues of other biological libraries and with several bibliographic databases are integrated in the
Virtual Library of Biology (vifabio)
For searching information on botanical books and monographs from the whole world, the online-catalogue of
Koeltz Scientific Books
is suitable (there, of course, you can also buy numerous scientific books).
If you are looking for publications on a certain German federal state (either with botanical or with others subjects), you should use one of the regional bibliographies (see
Virtuelle Landesbibliographie ).
At last, as "pie in the sky": On the international level there are considerable efforts to scan important scientific journals with all of their previous volumes electronically in retrospect; they shall be accessible online in the Web (see project
JSTOR ,
and for botany
www.botanicus.org
in particular).
In the end, with these kinds of databases a full-text retrieval in the journal literature of the 19th century will be possible.
Some botanically / ecologically important journals are already digitized, too - but access from Germany is difficult for potential users until today.
And, whether the older volumes of less important journals will ever be scanned this way ... we can only speculate.
... if visiting my literature page was useful to you: please recommend this service to your colleagues! And if you like to help me in improving this service, for instance by putting Your own literature database at my disposal, I would be glad, of course.
