FEATURE
That the environmental sciences encompass many disciplines is evident in the volumes of literature available. Present on-line computer systems aid in the storage and retrieval of pertinent information
environment cannot be neglected. Also of importance are those services specializing in environmental literatureAir Pollution Abstracts. Pollution Abstracts, Water Pollution Abstracts, Environment Abstracts (formerly Environment Information ACCESS)-and those with broad coverage such as Engineering Index. the NASA Star, and the Government Research Abstracts. Not only is there a disconcerting number of secondary sources that are at times guilty of duplication and overlap, but there is a superabundance of primary publications as well-publications such as congressional hearings, documents, journal articles, theses, translations, monographs, and conference papers. Fortunately, the trend to retrieve information with computers has developed rapidly. While this is no panacea, every little bit helps. There are now various compilations of machine-readable data, both federal and commercial, some of which are applicable to searching some aspects of the environmental literature. Not many organizations have available multiple data-base current-awareness systems. The lack of national standards for the transmission of this type of information has resulted in disparities in tape formats and variances in data elements, that, along with machine costs, present many problems for the potential user. Professional societies intimately concerned with different aspects of the environment are just getting organized. Cumulative author and subject indexes, a wel-
Information svstems enter mace acle I
Virginia D. Caswell
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University o f California, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, Calif. 94550
Subduing the mountain of information written about the environment is strenuous work. Like running up a down escalator, the effort is constant and in the right direction, but occasionally one wonders, breathlessly, if one can get to the top. When Congress declared the 1970's the environmental decade, it projected the nation into a commitment not unlike that of the space program. Reflecting on the state of bibliographic control when Sputnik first launched the U.S. on a program to the moon, one can ask if methods of information storage and retrieval have advanced since then. Problems abound in a number of areas: in the nature of the literature, the methods available for control, and in the proposals made for a solution and their implementation. Protecting the environment is an intricate activity. The environmental sciences bridge many disciplines, culminating in a multidisciplinary generation of information. Relevant developments in chemistry and biology; new techniques in the atmospheric sciences, civil engineering and air pollution control; advances in water resources engineering and the health sciences; improvements in electrical and mechanical engineering; new legislation; transportation; and energy management are the concerns of those who search the environmental literature. Not only are there problems that are characteristically technical, but there are those that encompass political, social, and economic aspects as well. These facets are also reflected in the literature. As yet there is nothing equivalent to the extensive indexing and abstracting services that exist in the established branches of science and technology-Biological Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts. Physics Abstracts, and Nuclear Science Abstracts. These standard sources reflecting more and more the international interest in the 990
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come, if delinquent, adjunct to their publications are being published for the first time. Other associations are changing the emphasis of their programs; journals are being renamed to show that, in the modern vernacular, they are "with it"; new acronyms are appearing; and new organizations are being formed every day.
EIS prospects During the past several years, the idea of a total environmental information system (EIS) has been explored by more than one group at national and international levels. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972, considered the need for information in the area of the environment so important that recommendations were made for an information referral service. As reported in the literature, this was proposed as a "modest and practical tool: to tell what information services exist, where they are, and how to gain access to them" ("Information," Pt.1, July-August, 1972). In May 1973, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to provide for participation by the U.S. in the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). A Senate bill on this subject, among other things, supports "fund allocations for the development and support of an international system for the exchange of information . , . the Information Referral Service being the principal element in this system" (Congressional Record. June 8, 1973). Signed on December 15, 1973, Public Law 92-188 provides for U.S. participation in UNEP. In September 1972, William D. Ruckelshaus. then administrator of the EPA, speaking at an environmental information symposium sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Cincinnati, referred to our "uncoordinated or nonexistent retrieval systems" and admitted that environmental information is generated by
some 75 different sources within the Federal Government alone. He agreed that "There is as great a need to organize and manage information as there is to make new discoveries." At the same conference, Dr. John W. Townsend, Jr., of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggested that a "national environmental and information system be established , , . eventually leading to a computer-to-computer query and reply capability." He said that it should not be a "monolithic center" but "an inter-related system of centers" which can provide users "with the types of environmental data they need, when they need it, in the forms and formats they require." An Interagency Conference on the Environment, sponsored by the EPA and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). was held in Livermore (Calif.) in October 1972. One of the panel groups explored the desirability of establishing a comprehensive national environmental data system and the problems associated with such a system. They concluded that "data files should be widely available, compatible, and flexible enough to meet future demands," and agreed on the undesirability of a single allinclusive information system. They envisioned, instead, a center that would act as a focal point for facilitating data bank access, interchange and interface; the obvious problems of the integration of current data banks, financial support, and responsibility were pointed out (CONF 721 002). Also in October 1972, Congress passed legislation to establish a national environmental data system and sent it to former President Nixon. Essentially the system was to serve as the central point "for the selection, storage, analysis, retrieval, and dissemination of environmental data made available to it by federal agencies, state and local governments, individuals and private institutions" (Congressional Record, Oct. 5, 1972). This National Environmental Data System and Environmental Center Act of 1972 was subsequently vetoed by the President. In his memorandum to Congress he said "that while both of these titles sound desirable in theory, they would lead to the duplication of information or would produce results unrelated to real needs and wasteful of talent, resources, and the taxpayer's money." He went on to say that "I believe the centralized collection of environmental data should be related to specific policies and programs . . . the EPA and other agencies have consistently worked to strengthen the acquisition and exchange of such data and this effort will continue."
This pocket veto did not kill congressional desire for this legislation. A bill (H.R. 4732) was reintroduced into the House of Representatives in February 1973 for legislation to provide for the National Environmental Data System and Environmental Centers Act of 1973. While it restates, for the most part, the words used i n the vetoed legislation, it also includes the following: "There is hereby established a National Environmental Data System. The Data System shall include an appropriate network of new and existing information processing or computer facilities both private and public in various areas of the United States, which, through a system of interconnections, are in communication with a central facility for input, access, and general management. I t shall also include all of the ancillary software and support services usually required for effective information system operation." Meanwhile, in May 1973, a Senate bill was introduced to "authorize the establishment of centers for environmental research, education, data collection, and data analysis within the States and regions of the Nation" (Congressional Record, May 22, 1973). It is essentially the same as S. 681. passed by the Senate i n the 92d Congress and similar to Title II of H.R. 56 passed by the House and Senate last year and later vetoed. Present status While the legislative process grinds on and conference rhetoric continues, what is being done at the working level? The answer seems to be that everyone is doing his "own thing." Many federal agencies have already developed data systems which handle environmental information along with the information in other subject areas. Notable systems are currently active in the Departments of Commerce. Agricuiture. Health, Education and Welfare, Defense, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. And. as might be expected, the EPA is in the forefront with its own efforts. The EPA's Air Pollution Information Center (APTIC) at Research Triangle Park (N.C.) prepares A i r Poilution Abstracts, a monthly publication available from the Superintendent of Documents on a subscription basis. APTiC also provides retrospective, machine-based literature searches on an individual basis. The National Environmental Research CenterICincinnati operates within the EPA to provide scientific and technical information to staff members through the development of an EPA information network. And in the areas of environmental monitoring and control. the EPA has develooed the following
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information systems to serve specific interests: NEDS (National Emissions Data System), SAROAD (Storage and Retrieval of Aerometric Data), STORET (National Water Quality Information System), SWlRS (Solid Waste Information Retrieval System), ENVIRON (Environmental Retrieval On-Line), and NOISE (Noise Information System). Access to these systems through remote terminals at EPA regional offices has been implemented or is being planned. An Environmental Information System is being developed at AEC's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Partially funded by the National Science Foundation, it is becoming a front-runner in providing a wide variety of environmental information on a nation-wide basis. The Environmental Information Systems Office (EISO) coordinates the activities of a number of information centers and their associated data bases, some of which are now available for on-line searching on the AECIRECON system. RECON, based on Lockheed's DIALOG system and developed by the AEC Headquarter's Technical Information Center and Union Carbide for use with Nuclear Science Abstracts, is an interactive. computerized information retrieval system. Adopted by EISO for small data bases, RECON uses a natural language dialog for easy access to citations appearing in the Energy, Toxic Materials. Water Resources, Mercury, Heated Effluent, and Nuclear Science data bases.
NOAA is developing its own Environmental Data Service. It is advertised as a "comprehensive single-source service for data and information applicable to environmental problems" (Environmental Data Service, August 1971). In the development of ENDEX (Environmental Data Index), NOAA hopes to be able to provide a "rapid referral service to existing national and global environmental science data files." Three useful services, not machine-readable but produced by government agencies, are: the Environmental Awareness Reading List, compiled by the Natural Resources Library of the Department of the Interior as a semimonthly listing; Selected Water Resources Abstracts, accumulated by the Office of Water Resources Research of the Department of the Interior. published bimonthly; and Environmental Pollution and Control, a weekly bulletin of report abstracts. All of these can be obtained by subscriptions placed with the National Technical Information Service (Springfield, Va.) Outside the Government there is a corresponding amount of activity. A machine-readable data base, the Environmental Science Citation Index, produced monthly by the Environment Information Center, Inc.. New York, gives interdisciplinary coverage of the literature in six broad categories. This same organization produces the Environment Abstracts, a monthly abstracting service in a conventional format. Pollution Abstracts, a bimonthly publication produced by Oceanic Library and Information Center (La Jolla. Calif.), abstracts technical and nontechnical literature over the entire environmental spectrum. Environmental Periodicals Bibliography, a publication of the Environmental Studies Institute, International Academy (Santa Barbara, Calif.), duplicates the tables of contents of journals in six subject categories on environmental matters. And, in the United Kingdom, the Scientific 992
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Documentation Centre Ltd. offers both current awareness services and retrospective literature searches on most environmental subjects. William T. Knox. Director of the National Technical Information Service, appropriately summarizes all these efforts: "The technological area of greatest public concern today appears to be environmental pollution and conservation. At high policy levels, the new areas of concern also include energy and the faster application of more technology to U .S. manufacturing, construction, transportation, and service sectors . . . (and) in none of these areas is there a technological information system that has the traits of the existing federal systems. Instead. there are fragmentary operations of limited scope being carried out by numerous public and private organizations" (Science, August 3. 1973). Projection es exist for the future owing to rapid developments in telecommunications, cable television, and the uses of communication satellites. Futurists speak of scientists having direct access, via desk-top terminals, to a network of national and international technical information banks; a national computerized research library, and home telephone access to computer files containing all books, magazines. and newspapers and other useful information. These are fascinating possibilities. However, for those who must deal with requests for environmental information on a daily basis, the computer information network i s probably the innovation closest at hand. It is no longer in the realm of science fiction to picture oneself sitting at a single computer terminal and accessing, in a matter of seconds, information available in the data bases on the AECIRECON system, MEDLINE, (National Library of Medicine) and the National Technical Information system. The trend is dramatically in this direction. That problems exist in coping with the sheer volume and diversity of environmental literature cannot' be denied. Although possi es for a total environmental information system seem remote and perhaps undesirable, today's information sources are workable, if somewhat a challenge. There is enough enduring interest in the state of environmental literature that given enough time, money, strong motivation, and the help of new technology, one will arrive at the top of the down escalator. Additional reading Bennett. G. F.. "Information Sources." Chem. Eng., Deskbook Issue. pp 39-47. June 18.1973. Schildhauer, C.. Compiler, "Environmental Information Sources: Engineering and Industrial Applications, An Annotated Bibliography,"Special Libraries Association. New York. N.Y.. 1972. Schneider, J. H.. et al., Eds., "Survey of Commercially Available Computer-Readable Bibliographic Data Bases." Washington. D.C.. American Society for InformationScience. 1973. Tuwiner. S. B.. Ed., "Environmental Science Technology Information Resources," Noyes Data Corp.. Park Ridge, N.J.. 1973. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Environmental Information Symposium, an Agenda for Progress, Cincinnati. Ohio, September 24-27, 1972. Val. I: Summary Report. May 1973. Vol. Ii: Papers and Report (PB 219071). Cincinnati, Ohio, EPA National Environmental Research Center.
Virginia D. Caswell I S a technical information specialist at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. While she searches the literature in a number of subject areas, her primary interests are in the literature relating to energy and the environment. Coordinated by LRE
