XIII IUFRO WORLD CONGRESS: FORESTS IN THE BALANCE: LINKING TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY

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100 Years of Forestry Information from Oxford
Oxford University has served the information
needs of the forestry profession for 100 years
Today, the Oxford Forest Information Service
(OFIS) is used by a global clientele from a wide
and diverse range of subject areas
Where it all began The story of forestry in
Oxford begins with the Royal Indian Engineering
College at Coopers Hill, Windsor, a training
college for the Indian civil service, which
established a school of forestry in 1871
Dec 2005 OULS, CABI, IUFRO and partners organise
a centenary conference to identify opportunities
and challenges in the development of Oxford
Forest Information Service in its second century
fifi_at_ouls.ox.ac.uk
The Future
Responding to YOUR needs tell us what you
want! www.plantlib.ox.ac.uk/forestry
The school moved to Oxford in 1905, with its
director, Sir William Schlich, and its library,
largely his personal collection
Schlich with his grandson, the composer Humphrey
Searle
Oxford Digital Library for Forestry launches
Winter 2005 www.odl.ox.ac.uk
In 1924 the Government set up the Imperial
Forestry Institute (IFI) as a central training
resource alongside the Oxford School of Forestry.
The Library served both, collecting reports from
across the Empire
The TREECD database becomes available on the web
as Forest Science Database www.forestscience.info
1924
2003
Management of the collections transferred in 2001
to newly-formed Oxford University Library
Services (OULS), ensuring long-term security and
continuing development

It began indexing them in the Current Monthly
Record of Forestry Literature from 1934
In 2000 OFIS began indexing forest related web
sites for the Agriculture, Forestry and Food
section of the BIOME gateway of the UK Resource
Discovery Network
That was taken over by the newly-formed Imperial
Forestry Bureau (now CAB International), which
began publishing Forestry Abstracts in 1939. It
still continues today
1939
1992
The entire abstracts archive was transferred to
CD-ROM in 1992 as TREECD
1964
1964 saw the creation of an in-house microfilm
unit, funded by the Ford Foundation. The
programme ran for over 30 years and produced 4000
reels of 35mm microfilm of library stock
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In 1951 the IFI moved to new purpose-built
accommodation in South Parks Road, Oxford. Now
the Department of Plant Sciences, the Library
remains in its original home on the first floor
In 1987 abstracting operations moved from Oxford
to CAB Internationals new HQ at Wallingford,
Oxon. New IT links and a formal Agreement with
Oxford University ensured continuity
OFIS supports development of the GLOBAL FOREST
INFORMATION SERVICE A CPF initiative
Poster prepared by Roger Mills (Oxford University
Library Services, UK)
XIII IUFRO WORLD CONGRESS FORESTS IN THE
BALANCE LINKING TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY