Cold Regions Bibliography
Background Information
General Information
Between 1999 and 2000, the Cold Regions Bibliography Project (CRBP)
was carried out under an interagency agreement between the Federal
Research Division (FRD) of the Library of Congress (LoC) and
the U.S.
Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL).
The mission of CRREL and FRD was to disseminate information on cold
regions science and technology. "Cold regions" here are
defined as both polar regions, their surrounding cold oceans, and
alpine regions worldwide. The staff accomplished this mission by
maintaining and continually updating a comprehensive database of
over 40 years of materials on the science and technology of the
world's cold regions.
History of the Project
The CRBP and its database was originally begun at the Science and
Technology Division of the Library of Congress in the 1950s under
sponsorship of CRREL. Between 1962 and 1998 the Office of Polar
Programs of the National Science Foundation became a cosponsor of
Antarctic material, and between 1995 and 1998 the Scott Polar Research
Institute of the University of Cambridge also contributed Antarctic
materials for inclusion in the database. When responsibility for
the continued maintenance and updating of the database was transferred
from the Library of Congress to the American Geological Institute
(http://www.agiweb.org/index.html) (AGI), it contained 222,654 bibliographic
records, many with abstracts.
Access to the Database
FRD staff continue to provide internet access to this archival
CRBP database which resides on an LoC server. For direct access
to this database as well as additional information on the history
and background of this project, please visit some of our other pages.
Access to the Cold Regions database that is currently being updated
is available through the AGI website.
The Bibliography's Sources
The Cold Regions Bibliography received most of its sources from
the collections of the Library of Congress, plus input from its
sponsor: the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
[CRREL]. Serial journals provided the bulk of the input, followed
by monographs, technical reports and conference proceedings. A substantial
amount of material was provided by other polar libraries, much in
the form of "gray" literature.
|