Report on
Discussion Forum on Information Services in the Asia-Pacific
and
AGRIS/CARIS in the 21st Century
an Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation

Edited by Michael Ibach and Yvonne Byron

AGRIS/CARIS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

REPORT ON THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL CONSULTATION

4 - 6 NOVEMBER 1996

BOGOR, INDONESIA

List of Acronyms

[Chapter 1]
Recommendation

[Chapter 2]
FAO, WAICENT, AGRIS, CARIS Forestry Information Services for the 21st Century

[Chapter 3]
Activities of the Forestry Department of FAO in Relation to Research and Information

[Chapter 4]
Principles of Abstracting and Indexing as applied by CAB International

[Chapter 5]
Can We See the Forest for the Trees?

[Chapter 6]
Improving Access to Forestry Information: the Experience of FORSPA

[Chapter 7]
IUFRO and Collaboration Possibilities of Enhancing with AGRIS/CARIS

Country Reports:

Bangladesh

China

India

Indonesia

Japan

Pakistan

Papua New Guinea

Philippines

Phillippines 2

SEAMEO

South Korea

Thailand

Vietnam

Western Samoa

[Appendix 1]
List of Participants

AGRIS AND CARIS ACTIVITIES IN INDONESIA

Liannie K. Daywin

Agency for Agricultural Research and Development, Bogor, Indonesia

POTENTIAL INFORMATION SOURCES

The main sources of scientific information are the research centres/research institutes within the Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (AARD), scattered in several provinces but mostly located in Bogor. They produce journals, bulletins, reports and proceedings. About 35 Journals are produced within AARD and 425 research programmes conducted yearly.

Apart from AARD, most state universities have research departments and there are also regional and international organisations such as BIOTROP and CIFOR. Each produces various publications.

FLOW OF INFORMATION/PUBLICATIONS

All publications published within the Ministry of Agriculture should be deposited in CALREC (Center for Agricultural Library and Research Communication), but because of budget constraints some institutions do not comply. Staff changes also affect distribution policy or knowledge about rules.

Some universities have an exchange agreement with CALREC publications.

STAFFING

Sixteen part-time librarians are involved in processing the AGRIS documents for agricultural information published in Indonesia, with 10 part-time computer operators for inputting. Staff changes affect the quality and rate of processing.

AGRIS/CARIS INPUT

During 1995-1996 we sent 600 articles and an additional 300 articles are still in the editing process. CARIS information is still being edited.

AGRIS PRODUCTS

Recently we received a new version of AGROVOC (1995); AGRIS, 1975-1996; AGRIS, Fisheries (Prototype) 1975-1983; AGRIS FHN, 1975-Dec. 1995; AGRINDEX, up to 1995.

USE OF AGRIS CD ROM

Most users are researchers from AARD and post-graduate students from Bogor Agricultural University. We have received requests for information using AGLINET from 6 countries. To serve our local users, we also seek international information by fax and e-mail. This is faster but still considered expensive. Image scanners have been tried for document delivery but it uses a lot of storage space.

CONSTRAINTS

• Limited availability of documents in AGRIS increases search and access time and costs. Non-conventional literature is backed up by microfiching the document internally.
  
• Lack of staffing: quality and quantity with keyboarding and language skills.
  
• The language barrier: articles in AGRIS are not always in English.
  
• Document delivery: has improved with new technology such as fax and e-mail but still considered expensive.
  
• Frequency of publication: often irregular
  
• Searching documents is expensive in time and money
  
• Currency of information: most documents received are 1-3 years old and processing takes time.