USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Snake River Field Station: Text Only

Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
Snake River Field Station

Richard R. Olendorff Memorial Library

The R. R. Olendorff Memorial Library was originally created from a merger of two collections: the Raptor Management Information System (RMIS) developed by Dr. Richard R. (Butch) Olendorff (1943-1994) of BLM, and the Snake River Birds of Prey Area Literature File managed by Karen Steenhof at the Boise District Office, BLM. Dr. Olendorff was a noted leader of the raptor research community and an internationally recognized authority on birds of prey. Butch had a lifelong interest in compiling raptor literature. The original focus of this collection was raptor ecology and management. This collection was named the Raptor Information System (RIS) and was later expanded to include:

all publications of the Raptor Research Foundation,
an extensive reprint collection donated by Dean Amadon,
papers on shrubsteppe ecology, prey, and vegetation, the focus of the Snake River Birds of Prey Literature File,
reprint files used to prepare raptor bibliographies published by the National Wildlife Federation,
a book collection donated by Barry L. Keller.

The focus of the collection is on raptor management, human interaction with raptors, the mitigation of adverse impacts, and basic raptor biology (with an emphasis on population dynamics and predation). The collection includes reprints of published papers, and theses and dissertations, as well as, a significant amount of "gray literature" in the form of popular articles, unpublished government reports and progress reports. It is updated regularly with recently published and/or newly acquired references.

The library has available online a catalog of the articles and books dealing specifically with raptors (the Raptor Information System, RIS), over 32,000 references.

Since formation of the Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center (FRESC), the collection scope has broadened to include more references on environment, theory and analysis of scientific research, and concerns of the Intermountain West bringing the entire collection to over 38,000 items and almost 700 books. The collection includes reprints of published papers, as well as a significant amount of Agray literature@ in the form of popular articles, theses, dissertations, unpublished government reports, and progress reports. It is updated regularly with recently published and/or newly acquired references. There is also a small collection of uncataloged newsletters, journals, and reports in several languages, and incomplete runs of 30+ journals. In addition to print resources, the library maintains a visual collection of over 5000 slides, many of which have been converted to a digital format. The library has a slide and flatbed scanner for public use.

In 1996 Karen Steenhof received a NBII grant to make the Raptor Information System (RIS) accessible on the internet. In 1997 the RIS became available on line at http://ris.wr.usgs.gov. This raptor database is used by both local and international patrons who recognize this extensive raptor collection as a useful resource.

The library staff continues to expand the collection. Library services are made available to SRFS staff, graduate students from BSU, local government agencies, public and private organizations. Information services have been expanded to all FRESC staff. Reprints of articles written by the Snake River Field Station research staff are available on request.

The Olendorff Memorial Library is available to anyone interested in the study of raptor ecology.

The library collection also contains articles focusing on the shrub steppe environment, methods, and theory relevant to raptor research. We collect articles in English, as well as other languages.

All references are searchable by author, search string in the title or citation, species, journal, year, subject keyword, and geographic location using Papyrus software. All papers catalogued in the database are on file in the library.

You can search for articles on a particular raptor species by asking for the genus and the species or by referring to an extensive species keyword list. You can search for one of approximately 200 special management topics or for any of approximately 4,000 general keywords.

Literature Searching and Publication Databases
list of science websites for researchers, some restricted to USGS employees only