CABI News

CABI’s extensive scientific library, consisting of thousands of books, journals and other research materials, from its Egham Research Centre, have found a new home and a much bigger audience thanks to The Internet Archive.

CABI, formed in 1910, is a not-for-profit Intergovernmental organisation that improves people’s lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.

Its 48 Member Countries guide and influence its work which is delivered by scientific staff based in our global network of centres. These include CABI’s Egham Research Centre which is soon to move to Imperial College London’s Silwood Park Campus after an agreement was reached to grow research collaboration between the two parties.

New home for its extensive reference library of books and journals

As part of this relocation, CABI sought to find a new home for its extensive reference library of books and journals in the fields of mycology, entomology, parasitology, nematology, biological control, pest management and general agriculture.

This represented 2,200 linear meters of shelving and many thousands of items which, unfortunately, could not be accommodated at Silwood Park.

Dr Dick Shaw, the Centre Director responsible for the relocation, said, “Things were looking bleak. The future of the library was in serious doubt as the scientific world moves away from hard copy literature and demand for our library’s content was almost non-existent.”

“However, we still needed access to the contents because no matter how old the literature, many things do not change much in the plant and animal world and any recorded observations of an organism or technique are crucially important no matter when they were made.”

Dr Shaw could not believe, when he first met the team at Internet Archive, that they were prepared to pack up, collect, scan and retain so much material and make it available to the world for free.

After a tricky removal and packing process, the first eighteen thousand or so items can already be accessed online in the IA CABI Archive Library. CABI’s content will now be seen by the people that need to have access to it and the organisation’s contribution to world agriculture and research can extend beyond the many projects and in-house publications that it delivers every year.

“More people can have free access to the world’s knowledge”

Dr Shaw said, “It is hard to find words to capture just how important the contribution that the Internet Archive and its excellent team have made to the Centre at Egham, CABI and the world of research. I sincerely hope that this work continues apace, and more and more people can have free access to the world’s knowledge at the click of a mouse.”

Materials within the CABI Library held at Egham are distinct from content available from the CABI Digital Library which is the home of CABI’s research content and resources. The CABI Digital Library gives users access to over 15 million research articles across agriculture, the environment, human health and nutrition, veterinary sciences and leisure tourism.

It includes CABI Databases, including CAB Abstracts and Global Health, as well as various collections, such as the Animal Science Collection, CABI Compendium including Aquaculture and Crop Protection, CABI books, journals, including CABI Agriculture and Bioscience, and cases such as One Health Cases and Plant Health Cases.

Liz Rosenberg, from The Internet Archive, said, “The CABI Archive Library is a unique and valuable resource, so the Internet Archive was eager to provide a home for the collection and bring these materials online for students and researchers.

“We began the physical item donations program to support our mission of Universal Access to All Knowledge by preserving materials that aren’t digitally accessible.

“The Internet Archive team worked with the CABI team to safely remove, pack and ship the library collection to its new preservation home which was made so much easier thanks to the work of Lesley Ragab, CABI’s librarian. With 18,000 items already preserved and digitized, we are looking forward to uncovering more scientific treasures in the CABI collection.”

You can find out more and access the content from the CABI Library donated to The Internet Archive from CABI’s Egham Research Centre here.

Additional information

Photo: (Credit: Pixabay).

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About The Internet Archive

The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.

We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral – but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 28+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 1,200+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages.

As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains: 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts,15 million audio recordings (including 255,000 live concerts),10.6 million videos (including 2.6 million Television News programs), 4.8 million images and 1 million software programs.