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.