solid waste management
worldwide solid waste literature
collection/retrieval services
available from EPA
-------
Solid Waste Management
WORLDWIDE SOLID WASTE LITERATURE
COLLECTION/RETRIEVAL SERVICES
AVAILABLE FROM EPA
This publication (SW-636) was written
by JOHN A. CONNOLLY
and supersedes SW-91.2 (order No. 294)
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1977
-------
3d Edition
with revised title and cover
as well as minor revisions
to the text and new graphics
An environmental protection publication (SW-636) in the solid waste management series
-------
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT WORLDWIDE SOLID WASTE LITERATURE
COLLECTION/RETRIEVAL SERVICES AVAILABLE FROM EPA
by John A. Connolly*
The status of solid waste management today is illustrative of the
environmental transition which our country is attempting to make--a
transition from an era of the random and careless use of resources,
accompanied by equally aimless and damaging disposal practices, to an
era of resource conservation, accompanied by environmental awareness
and the foresightful use of technology.
Federal attention was first placed on the problem in 1965 with
passage of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, which authorized the creation of
a modest program of technical assistance to States, local governments,
and interstate agencies for planning and developing solid waste manage-
ment. The 1965 Act also promoted national research programs to find
better methods for controlling, processing, recovering, and recycling
wastes and for disposing of residues.
In 1970, this Act was amended by the Resource Recovery Act,
which stressed the need to develop resource recovery in solid waste
management. It required, also, a comprehensive investigation of hazard-
ous waste management practices in the United States. The Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, Public Law 94-580, fosters
attention to all aspects of solid waste management.
Availability of information is essential to the advancement of any
field. The Act contains many provisions for developing and dissemi-
nating solid waste informa 'on. It requires EPA to establish a central
solid waste management reK-rence library, and to collate, analyze, and
publish the information collected for the library. Rapid information
dissemination is also required of EPA, as well as programs to educate the
public on solid waste management issues.
Rarely has Federal legislation delineated in such detail the par-
ticulars of information activities at the program level. We do not yet
know what funding and manpower will be available for implementing the
new legislation, but we expect that considerable strengthening and
expansion of current information efforts will now be possible.
EPA currently reports on the results of all solid waste activities
undertaken by its Office of Solid Waste by means of EPA publications,
through articles by EPA authors appearing in various journals, and in
the publications of the National Technical Information Service of the U.S.
Department of Commerce.
* Mr. Connolly directs the information retrieval services of the
Office of Solid Waste, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
-------
The primary mission of EPA's solid waste information retrieval sys-
tem is to collect and disseminate information on technological develop-
ments from the world's literature on solid waste management. This is
accomplished by a continual scanning of the world literature for input, in
the form of indexed abstracts, storage by computer, and output, again
in the form of abstracts. In accomplishing this mission, we coordinate
our activities with other Federal information systems and libraries, State
and local systems, the World Health Organization, and Environment
Canada.
Users of technical information are very much aware of the growth of
excellent, specialized libraries and information retrieval systems within
industry over the past three decades. In facing the same technical
information needs for the users of data developed in government activi-
ties, in the past 20 years both Federal and State governments have
expanded existing libraries and added industry's concept of computer
utilization, microforms, and the field of information science. Like
specialized libraries, there have come into being specialized information
retrieval systems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's solid
waste information retrieval service embraces both of these specialized
functions.
The information retrieval services program is composed of two ele-
ments: the solid waste information retrieval system (SWIRS) and the
library. The library and SWIRS are already meeting the requirements of
the new Act to a limited degree in that a central reference library is
already established and that the information is being collated, analyzed
and made available through SWIRS.
SWIRS has an information bank of abstracts retrievable through the
use of keywords. The library contains all of the documents abstracted
for input to SWIRS and provides interlibrary loan services to established
libraries. The combined services are available to the scientific and tech-
nical community throughout the world. Presently the day-to-day opera-
tions of the SWIRS and library are performed by a contractor, but are
fully monitored and managed by the Chief of the information retrieval
program.
The operations include: (1) continuous input of the world's lit-
erature, (2) full library services, (3) publication of monthly abstract
bulletins, reflecting key literature abstracted in that month, indexed,
with cumulative index volume at the end of each year, (4) response to
inquiries for literature searches.
SWIRS
SWIRS consists of a vast collection of worldwide literature relevant
to solid waste management. Materials selected for the information bank
are retrievable through use of a list of keywords, by automated means.
Although the collection is primarily scientific and technical, nontechnical
information is also available. Users of SWIRS include Federal, State, and
local agencies in the United States and abroad as well as members of the
-------
general research and development community, consulting engineers,
attorneys, students, citizen and civic groups and environmental organi-
zations .
Data Base
Documents to be entered in SWIRS are drawn from a wide variety of
published sources (Figure 1). The world's periodical literature in this
field is comprised of approximately 700 primary titles. Other sources for
the information bank include patents and such nonperiodical documents
as conference papers, books, technical reports, monographs, and laws.
Additional sources are EPA personnel and other key persons working in
the field of solid waste management in government, industry, and
universities. Although this coverage is extensive, we recognize that no
amount of effort will identify all pertinent documents. SWIRS therefore
welcomes suggestions from any source for additional materials that should
be made available to the system's users.
After selection of documents and during input preparation, specific
keywords describing the documents are assigned; these keywords are
drawn from SWIRS1 thesaurus of terms. There are also 30 major
categories in this system designed primarily as a table of contents for
our monthly abstract bulletin but also available as a search tool for broad
subject coverage. The literature abstracted is primarily from non-OSW-
generated sources, and is retrievable under the following category
searchable elements:
AGRICULTURAL WASTES
Crop residues
Manure
Timber/other vegetation
ANALYSIS OF SOLID WASTE
Data
AUTOMOBILES
BULKY WASTES
COLLECTION
COMPOST
DISPOSAL
ECONOMICS
Disposal costs
Financing facilities
Pollution control costs
Marketing information
Taxes and incentives
HAZARDOUS WASTES
HEALTH/SAFETY
INCINERATION
INDUSTRIAL WASTES
INSTITUTIONAL WASTES
LAWS/REGULATIONS
LITTER
MANAGEMENT
Municipal
Regional
Rural
State
OCEAN DISPOSAL
PACKAGING
PROCESSING/REDUCTION
RECYCLING
Incinerator residue
Industrial wastes
Mining wastes
Municipal refuse
Scrap metal
RESEARCH
SANITARY LANDFILL
SEPARATION
SLUDGE
STORAGE
STREET CLEANING
TRAINING, EDUCATION,
PUBLIC RELATIONS
TRANSPORT
SOURCE REDUCTION
ENERGY
Demand, for solid waste
management
Fuel from wastes
Heat utilization from
incineration
For each input to the SWIRS computer file a sheet is prepared which
contains a complete bibliographic citation and an informative abstract.
Although foreign language articles are abstracted in English, the articles
themselves are not always completely translated.
As of February 1977 there were approximately 42,000 documents and
abstracts in the system.
3
-------
BOOKS
REPORTS
PERIODICALS
PATENTS
COMPUTER
The Solid Waste Information Retrieval
System is a bibliographic data base con-
taining abstracts of selected documents
from the world's open literature on all
aspects of solid waste management.
Figure 1. —Input
-------
User Services
SWIRS offers a variety of services. These include responding to
general inquiries, conducting literature searches on specific topics,
library services, preparing of specialized bibliographies, publishing a
monthly abstract bulletin, providing liaison to the World Health Organi-
zation and Environment Canada solid waste activities, and conducting
user seminars. No fee is charged at present for any of these services.
In addition, the Chief of the Information Retrieval Services Program
provides consultation in information/library science design and, as a
member of the EPA Information Systems Committee, assists in continued
development of Agency information activities.
General Inquiries. Written, telephone, or in-person inquiries are
honored for any general information that can be provided without a
machine search, such as a request by a student for "publications that
give a general picture of the solid waste problem in the United States."
Referral services are also provided to direct an inquirer to persons
working in EPA, other Federal agencies, or others who are
knowledgeable in the subject of the request. General information may be
requested by calling (202) 755-9153 or by writing or visiting SWIRS, 401
M Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460.
Literature Searches. Comprehensive literature searches may be
obtained by writing to SWIRS, P.O. Box 2365, Rockville, Maryland
20852. To avoid the probability of receiving an unnecessary volume of
material unrelated to your needs, be specific when requesting a
literature search.
The sources of information within Office of Solid Waste and other
government and private sources are tapped in response to such requests
(Figure 2). The primary source is the SWIRS information bank, con-
taining the information abstracted from the scientific and technical
documents. Capability exists for selective retrieval by a controlled set
of keywords and other data elements, permitting entry of a question
such as: "What technology exists in eastern Europe related to utilization
of heat from incinerators since 1969?" Searches may also be conducted to
provide complete bibliographic citation information when a reference is
incomplete, or to verify the accuracy of a citation. The results of all
searches are prescreened before they are sent to requestors in an effort
to cull out items not closely related to the topic. (Copyright restrictions
preclude provision of full text of pertinent articles; however, there are
provisions for interlibrary loan of all documents in the system.)
A search of the library is made and citations of pertinent holdings
not yet entered into the system, as well as related OSW-generated
publications, are provided where appropriate. (All library services are
described below.) Requests are normally answered within ten days of
receipt of the written request. To insure that SWIRS is responsive to
users' needs, feedback is sought through user evaluation of the effec-
tiveness of the information received, including suggestions for adding
documents the user may have identified that were not included in the
-------
RESPONSE PACKET
BIBLIOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION
Searches of the world's open literature on
all aspects of solid waste management
may be obtained by writing to SWIRS,
P.O. Box 2365, Rockville, Maryland 20852.
Responses are in the form of abstracts
and bibliographic information. The docu-
ments of this information bank are main-
tained in the Office of Solid Waste special
library. Interlibrary loan with recognized
libraries is available.
BOOHjS, REPORTS
Figure 2.—Output
-------
information package. Feedback is also obtained through periodic inter-
views with key users. Based on the feedback, the criteria used to select
documents for input to SWIRS are updated, and terms are added or
deleted from the thesaurus as well as the major categories Listing.
User Seminars. Seminars are primarily designed for Office of Solid
Waste personnel; however, other users may request an appointment for
demonstration and instruction. The seminars provide users with a
detailed knowledge of the SWIRS information bank and related facilities.
Publications. The information bank is also the source of various
bibliographic publications. The following is a listing of the documents
generated by the system over the past 10 years:
Solid Waste Management; Abstracts from the Literature, 1964, 1965,
1966, 1967, 1968
Abstracts; Selected Selected Patents on Refuse Handling Facilities for
Buildings
Patent Abstracts; International Solid Waste Management (1945-1969)
Patent Abstracts; United States Solid Waste Management (1945-1969)
Solid Waste Management Monthly Abstract Bulletins, Volume 1, 1973
Users' Guide to the Solid Waste Information Retrieval System
Thesaurus' (out of print)
Library Holdings--Nonperiodical; Federal Solid Waste Management
Program
All these documents are available from:
Solid Waste Information
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, Ohio 45268
THE LIBRARY
In the process of gathering the SWIRS data base over the past nine
years, we have developed a collection of solid waste management litera-
ture from various parts of the world and have organized this into the
SWIRS Library. Since the SWIRS information bank is maintained via the
contract mechanism, the library is also housed at the contractor facility;
this is to insure adequate coverage of the materials available and more
rapid response to user requests. Interlibrary loan is available through
recognized libraries. All that is required to borrow any document
-------
identified from an abstract from the system is the six-digit accession
number, which appears in the upper right corner of the abstract. It
SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THIS LIBRARY IS NOT A PART OF THE
CENTRAL EPA library but is instead a unit of the Office of Solid Waste.
SW-636
-------
Region I
John F. Kennedy Bldg.
Boston, MA 02203
(617) 223-7210
Region II
26 Federal Plaza
New York, NY 10007
(212) 264-2515
Region III
6th & Walnut Sts.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 597-9814
Region IV
345 Courtland St., N.E.
Atlanta, GA 30308
(404) 881-4727
Region V
230 South Dearborn St.
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 353-2000
Region VI
1201 Elm St., First International Bldg.
Dallas, TX 75270
(214) 749-1962
Region VII
1735 Baltimore Ave.
Kansas City, MO 64108
(816) 374-5493
Region VIII
1860 Lincoln St.
Denver, CO 80203
(303) 837-3895
Region IX
100 California St.
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 556-2320
Region X
12006th Ave.
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 442-5810
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Regional Offices
------- |