A STARTING POINT FOR BIODIVERSITY LITERATURE

Smith, C.H. ( 2000 ) Biodiversity studies: a bibliographic review . Scarecrow Press, Inc. , Lanham, Maryland . xiii + 459 pp, two bibliographies, three indices. Hardback: Price US$69.50. ISBN 0 810 83754 4 . This book is an attempt to document the literature on biodiversity. It is organized into two bibliographies: one listing 5714 papers and monographs (but, importantly, it omits most papers from edited collections), and one listing 166 special issues of serial publications. To support these bibliographies are three indices: general, by geographical region, and by ‘organism-centred subject’. The book is easy to use, interesting, informative and fun; but as one browses through it, one finds many inconsistencies, idiosyncrasies and uncertainties. The book appears to cover all work published before 1999 (particularly 1986–98), but there are some glaring omissions for 1998, and I wonder how complete the coverage is for that year. At the other end of the chronology, there is a useful listing of pre-1950 works. While this is interesting, coverage of such early work is patchy — for instance, Alexander von Humboldt does not feature in the book. Such an omission can only be partially explained by the authors’ admission that the works included are primarily those written in English. Sometimes one wonders what criteria the author used for inclusion of publications. I came across several papers which I know well, that have little to do with biodiversity. Other works, which are of direct relevance, are not listed — including about a quarter of the pre-1999 references on the biodiversity reading lists that I give to undergraduates. Similarly, there are many omissions of works from the indices, which are highly appropriate to the relevant term. However, the degree of cross-referencing is such that, if one looks up a number of related terms in the indices, on any given subject, one is likely to find most of the relevant works. One of the best features of this book is the bibliometric ratings. The works are scored according to their citation history (and, for monologues, their library holdings and review history). At a glance, one can therefore get some idea of how influential the work has been. This is very useful and interesting; and it provokes thought about why some excellent works have had such little influence (and vice-versa). In the bibliographies, many of the entries include useful ‘added terms’ and short annotations, which give information not obvious from the works’ titles. However, I think that the book would have benefited from greater usage of the keywords listed in journals. Overall, I think that this book is a good introductory documentation of the biodiversity literature, and I (along with many others) will find it very useful in the near future. However, one should bear in mind that it does not provide comprehensive coverage, and is already somewhat out of date. This sort of work is perhaps more suited to being a web or CD-ROM resource (allowing frequent updating and much more information about each listed publication) than a book.

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