UIS Informatics Commission
Leader: Michele Sivelli, IT.
Edition 4 (Draft Report and Spreadsheet 15) - 7 July 2022
The Publications Exchange Sub-commission of the UIS Informatics Commission has been established to tackle the challenges and opportunities for the exchange, accessing, organisation, safe storage and archiving of world-wide published speleological and karstic information into the future.
This edition of the web page includes the 2022 Report and Spreadsheet 15 detailing the work done since the 2017 Congress, future steps needed, and status.
The previous edition of the web page showed the officially published Edition 3 of the Guidelines and Exchange Status spreadsheet after the 2017 Sydney Congress meeting. They are a reformatting of Edition 2, together with the latest updates from that meeting.
Since inaugurating this group in 2013 and coordinating discussion of the guidelines through three draft editions to their official release, Trevor Faulkner retired as Leader at the end of 2017. The Sydney meeting unanimously endorsed Michele Sivelli, the Librarian for the Societa Speleologica Italiana, to lead the group from the start of 2018, and to attend to future advances and ongoing maintenance.
The Working Group (PEWG) was renamed a Sub-commission (PESC) to comply with UIS directives in 2017.
These aims are being achieved by discussion, publication and ongoing updates to the issued Guidelines document and the accompanying Exchange Status spreadsheet.
Our vision is that the Sub-commission will assist in the networking of over 100 existing speleological libraries internationally that will each hold and catalogue a good selection of published cave and karst literature.
All speleo Librarians, Editors, other production people and anyone else interested in this topic is invited to contact the Group Leader and join the Sub-commission so that we can benefit from your opinions and experience.
Over a series of meeting and email exchanges since 2013 the group has produced and now issued guidelines setting out the issues and our recommendations related to the various aspects of exchanging speleological publications. We have also produced a spreadsheet where current organisations, titles, and the exchange status between them can be recorded.
Download PDF: Publications Exchange Guidelines
(Edition 3: 17 Oct 2017)
Download PDF:
Publications Exchange Report 2022
(Draft: 7 Jul 2022)
If you have any suggested improvements, please email them to the Group Leader for future editions.
Download spreadsheet: Exchange Status
(Updated 28 Dec 2017)
Download Spreadsheet:
Spreadsheet 15: 7-Jul-2022
Spreadsheet updates are encouraged: please download the spreadsheet, highlight your updates, and email it back to the Group Leader.
Inaugural Meeting on 2013-07-25, Brno, Czech Republic: Record of meeting | Overheads
Workshop on 2016-08-16, Yorkshire, UK: Minutes
Workshop on 2017-07-28 at ICS 2017, Sydney, Australia: Agenda | Minutes
UIS Documentation Centres are now listed in the Guidelines in Chapter 4. However some of these might no longer exist: please advise Lucas Malafaia (sbe@cavernas.org.br) if you have any new information about them.
It was noted during the ICS 2017 PESC Workshop that the 34th Brazilian Congress of Speleology had approved a motion in June 2017: To support the proposal for recognition of National Documentation Centers for UIS through the Publications Exchange Sub-commission of the Informatics Commission. This proposal has been sent to the UIS Bureau. The key questions are: which person or group shall decide which libraries fulfil the requirements to be new (national) Documentation Centres, and what is the process for making that decision? The Proposal was discussed at the PESC Workshop and the meeting found that this was a good proposal. Further discussion, including with the UIS Bibliography Commission, will be held in 2018 and a recommendation sent to the UIS Bureau for approval.
Eventually we also hope to have tools available to help with this work. For example, cataloguing software. Can anyone recommend any standards-based cataloguing software, preferably free?
If you want to email any of the organisations listed in the spreadsheet, the address of their publications contact person can be supplied by the Group Leader upon request.