What is AGRIS?

WHAT IS AGRIS?

AGRIS is the International bibliographic Information System for the AGRicultural sciences and technology. It became operational in 1975 and since then AGRIS has accumulated a database of more than 2.8 million bibliographic references (in August 1998).

AGRIS is managed centrally by the WAICENT/FAOINFO Dissemination Management Branch of the Library and Documentation Systems Division (GIL) of FAO.

Subject Fields

Created by FAO to facilitate world-wide information exchange, AGRIS identifies world literature/documents dealing with all aspects of agriculture (including forestry, fisheries, human nutrition and environment):

agriculture in general

plant science, production and protection

post harvest technology

forestry

animal science, production and protection

fisheries and aquaculture

agricultural machinery and engineering

natural resources and environment

(including pollution, water management and climatology/meteorology)

food and human nutrition

processing of agricultural products

agricultural economics

rural sociology and rural development

geography and history

agricultural administration, legislation, information, education and extension

methodologies.

To see a more complete description of subject categories of AGRIS click here.

Types of Documents Referred

All types of documents (materials) are included (referred) in the AGRIS databases, at analytical, monograph and/or serial levels:

- monographs (books)
- conferences
- reports
- theses and dissertations
- drawings, maps and atlases
- patents
- summaries and literature reviews
- bibliographies
- multimedia (films/videos, sound recordings, photos, slides, computer media, etc.)
- other miscellaneous and non-conventional ("grey literature" not available through normal distribution channels).

Composition of the AGRIS database:

- 75% journal articles
- 18% monographs
- 6% conferences papers
- 1% others
- 16% refer to non-conventional literature (not commercially available)
- 21% include abstracts

Document Description

Each publication (document) is described by the most revealing and conclusive data:

- title in English and original language
- authors and their affiliation
- mpublication source and identification
- language of original documen
- primary and other subject category codes
- descriptors (key words) in English, French and Spanish
- abstracts in English, French or/and Spanish
- etc.

To see a more complete description of a document (publication) in the AGRIS system click here.

For indexing the input documents (associating the appropriate descriptors) in order to be easily retrieved, a structured and controlled thesaurus, AGROVOC, is used.

Languages of Original Documents:

- 58% English
- 8% French
- 7% German
- 7% Spanish
- 4% Japanese
- 3% Italian
- 3% Russian
- 2% Portuguese
- 8% others

How does AGRIS work?

AGRIS is a cooperative system in which participating countries input references to the literature/documents produced within their boundaries and, in return, draw on the information provided by the other participants.

The bibliographic references forwarded by participating countries are collected and processed in the AGRIS Processing Unit Vienna, which is hosted by the Division of Scientific and Technical Information of the IAEA.

Contributors to AGRIS:

To date 159 national and 31 international and intergovernmental centres participate and submit about 14.000 items per month.

AGRIS Products and Services

AGRIS CD-ROMs

A CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read-Only-Memory) uses an electro-optical technology for storing and retrieving large amounts of data.

The whole collected AGRIS information is distributed using a series of CD-ROMs:

AGRIS CD-ROMs: all collected information, stored on

archival CD-ROMs and
one current CD-ROM, which contains the last collected information (quarterly updated)

AGRIS FHN CD-ROM: contains information in the domains of Food and Human Nutrition extracted from all AGRIS CD-ROMs (semi-annually updated)

AGRIS FORESTRY CD-ROM: contains information in the domains of forestry and primary forest products extracted from all AGRIS CD-ROMs.

AGRIS and AGRIS FHN CD-ROMs are produced by SilverPlatter Information Ltd., using data prepared by AGRIS Processing Unit Vienna; the SilverPlatter's software WinSPIRS is used for retrieving the information.

AGRIS FORESTRY CD-ROMs are produced by WAICENT/FAOINFO of the Library and Documentation Systems Division (GIL) of FAO; The retrieving software, HEURISKO (CDS/ISIS based), is included.

For information retrieval from AGRIS CD-ROMs, the existing software (WinSPIRS, HEURISKO) permits different searching operations to accommodate different searching needs of users:

- Searching by descriptors defined in the AGROVOC Thesaurus
- Searching by subject category codes, authors, publication year, publication language, etc.
- Searching free text in different description fields
- Logical search operators (OR, AND, NOT, WITH, NEAR)
- Limiting search operators (less than, greater then, range, etc.)
- Truncation of words (to retrieve all variants)
- Lateral searching (forward/backward)
- etc.

AGRIS DATABASE ON-LINE

On-line access to the global AGRIS database is provided by:

AGRIS DATABASE ON-LINE (FAO/WAICENT, FAO Web Server)

To access now the database click here

DIALOG (Palo Alto, USA): non-USA portion only

DIMDI (Cologne, Germany)

AGROVOC Thesaurus (FAO/WAICENT, FAO Web Server)

Information Services – on request

APU Vienna provides, if requested, in printed form or on magnetic media:

Retrospective searches through the entire data base;

Selective dissemination of information (SDI) service, by which users can request the AGRIS Processing Unit, to keep them informed of any new AGRIS entries on specific subjects of concern to them.

National bibliographies, containing all entries generated in a country and those concerning this country and published outside. Master copies can be prepared on a high resolution laser printer in Agrindex format, ready for reproduction by offset or photocopy.

Subject bibliographies, can also be prepared upon request from specialised cooperating centres such as the CGIAR IARC's, or FAO divisions.

Other Services

Developing and distribution of AGRIS working methodologies

Developing and distribution of the AGROVOC Thesaurus

Distribution of the UNESCO’s CDS/ISIS database software for PCs

Developing and distribution of software for AGRIS input data preparation (AGRIN/AGCHK)

Training material and courses

Other products on Web Server (APU Vienna):

. AGRIS Reference Series

Products available on FTP Server (APU Vienna):

. Current monthly AGRIS output file
. AGROVOC Thesaurus
. Agrindex (AGRIS monthly bibliography in English, French and Spanish;

only up to December 1995)

. Training materials (AGRIS Reference Series).

New Developments

New developments are under work for the AGRIS System, which will take advantage of the latest improvements of Information Technologies (Internet, etc.). These developments have in view to decentralise data processing and to prioritise national capacity building enhancing autonomous management of national agricultural information.

The development of the AGRIS System was discussed and included in the recommendations of the Fourth Technical Consultation of AGRIS and CARIS Participating Centres held in Rome in June 1998.

AgroWeb Romania

Agricultural Information Centres

Romanian AGRIS/CARIS Centre