Full-text database “Outstanding soil scientists of Russia”: creation, purpose and use

The full-text problem-oriented database “Outstanding Soil Scientists of Russia” (DB), created by the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Central Scientific Agricultural Library” (CSAL), for the purpose of providing information for scientific research in the field of soil science and improving information and library services for agricultural scientists and specialists. Full-text DBs significantly expand users’ access to information resources, save time, allowing them to get the necessary information to their desktop without physically visiting the library. The inclusion in scientific circulation of complete electronic texts of the most significant works of outstanding Russian soil scientists, which are part of the scientific heritage, organized into a single structured array that allows for a quick and effective search for individual document attributes and full text, improves the quality of information support for scientific research on agriculture and soil science. The methodology of DB formation is described. The DB is part of the complex of information resources of the CSAL, the linguistic and software tools of which provide the formation of a complete bibliographic record, relevant and fast search. The database content was generated from the CSAL stock. As a result of studying the stock, literature and bibliographic sources, and consultations with specialists from the V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute, a list of 147 people was formed. The list includes the most famous soil scientists who have made a great contribution to the development of soil science and have left a significant mark on science: scientists of tsarist Russia, scientists who worked in the USSR, and scientists working now. The science of soil was born in Russia; it is called Russian science because it was Russian scientists who laid the foundation of classical soil science. The DB includes the works of the founders of soil science. The created problem-oriented database “Outstanding Soil Scientists of Russia” contains more than 450 documents. The creation of problem-oriented DBs improves the quality of information and library services for users, providing quick and comfortable search and the ability to get information to the researcher’s desktop. The inclusion of retrospective or little-known works by soil scientists in general scientific circulation expands the boundaries of user knowledge, which will be useful for scientists and practitioners studying the historical roots of the development of soil science.