Natural Resource Bibliography
Background
The Natural Resource Bibliography (NatureBib), developed by the National Park Service, is an Internet-based application used used to catalog, search, and manage natural resource-related information sources pertaining to national parks. NatureBib is one of the 12 core NPS natural resource inventories, and is designed to make park-related natural resource information more readily available and easy to locate.
NatureBib is primarily used to catalog and manage reports, articles, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, gray literature, and other documents that contain information on park natural resources. In particular, NatureBib is an excellent tool for capturing references that may not be easily located via commercial on-line reference services (e.g., BIOSIS, JStor) or via public or academic libraries.
In addition, NatureBib allows the uploading of full-text versions of documents and publications, so that users can view or download documents resulting from their searches.
As a general rule, NatureBib is not intended to be a definitive bibliographic source for all literature available on a particular park or resource, nor is it intended for very general references (e.g., Birds of North America; Weeds of the West). Information that pertains to lands or resources adjacent to park units is appropriate for inclusion in NatureBib if it has relevance to park management issues. Miscellaneous items such as maps or correspondence can also have a place in NatureBib, based upon their content.
Products
Primary access to NatureBib records is via the NatureBib online application. A login in required to access NatureBib, which can be obtained by submitting a Login Request form to the NatureBib Coordinator.
A desktop version of NatureBib is also available for certain types of data management tasks, or for users without an adequate Internet connection.
Status
NatureBib currently houses approximately 300,000 records and NPS staff continue to add and update records on a daily basis. NatureBib will be undergoing an extensive redesign in late 2008 and into 2009 as NPS transitions its natural resource information systems to a service-oriented architecture framework. NatureBib will be publicly accessible when the new version is released.
More Information
- Email Margaret Beer, Inventory Coordinator - ph: (970) 267-2168
- NatureBib Application Website
- MSAccess Desktop Application
- NatureBib field definitions
- NPS Natural Resource Inventories