At an Expert Consultation on Planning for Aquaculture Development, held in Policoro, Italy in 1988 (see ADCP/REP/89/33), the participants identified an integrated set of opportunities for technical assistance to developing countries. The opportunities were predominantly a group of needs or ideas to assist in guiding investment decisions, primarily at the national level in both the public and private sectors.
One of the needs identified for regional management was to provide educational and training institutions with minimum bibliographic bases for aquaculture. The approach suggested was to "prepare a list of the basic reference works for institutional libraries involved in education and research in aquaculture. In addition to details of supplier and price, the works should be annotated to simplify selection". Its purpose would be to assist the introduction of aquaculture into the existing university/college structure of developing countries. Furthermore, it would allow them to make the best use of their limited resources for educational and technical materials, particularly as the titles of books are often misleading as to their contents.
"An Annotated Bibliography of Aquaculture Books for Libraries of Developing Countries" has been prepared by Donatella Crosetti. Although the targets of the Bibliography are information needs of developing countries, by far the greater number of books is published in the developed countries. Moreover the majority still concern indigenous species and practices of developed countries. However, most of them contain fundamental principles of aquatic animal and plant biology, breeding and propagation techniques, culture systems and practices, post-harvest handling, marketing, and economics, all of which are common denominators in the field of aquaculture. Therefore, the Bibliography does not exclude any species deliberately, as in this rapidly advancing age of culture technology and technology transfer, it is often only market demand and economics which prevent many species being produced in a number of developing countries at the present time. Therefore, almost every book available has been considered.
Because of the large number of titles of books and published works currently dealing with aquaculture available to libraries, a number of conditions were imposed. The following points should therefore be taken into account by the users of the document:
(i) Only books published in the last ten years, or republished having been updated, are included. Therefore the chances are high that these books will be available for another five years.(ii) The list includes proceedings of several symposia and conferences when it is known that copies are still available. Many proceedings of similar events are excluded as few copies were printed, and these were mostly distributed to participants.
(iii) The list tries to maintain a balance of subject matter, and regional interest. However, it has some anomalies. For example, all publications of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are. excluded as these are already summarized in published bibliographies, with some exceptions as these are the only known works dealing with certain topics.
(iv) The list includes certain books in which aquaculture per se is not the principal field. However, the contents have significant relevance to aquaculture. For example, the list includes three multidisciplinary series dealing with crustaceans, molluscs, and fish physiology. The list does not include new books where the reference to aquaculture is no more than one or two chapters of general nature.
(v) The names and addresses of the publishers (or other sources) are included, although most books will be available through regional or national agencies. Where it is available the most current price (1989) is quoted.
(vi) A number of books are known to be out of print. However, these are included because (a) they have been already reprinted and further reprints are highly probable, or (b) the same book in another language or from another source is available.
Finally, ADCP and the author acknowledge the assistance of librarians and staff of several national and international aquaculture research centres who reviewed the provisional list and made suggestions and recommendations for further inclusions, and advised on the simplicity of the indexing.
Colin E. Nash
Craig B. KenslerRome, 1989
