With all the publicity surrounding the recently-held Eden Project, the upcoming environmental youth conference being organised by the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo (BAMZ), and Earth Day today, our focus should be firmly on the environment. From the themes of the educational exhibits at the Agricultural Exhibition to many school projects, urgent environmental issues are being explored, and I thought it might be useful to look at some of the locally available sources of information for teachers and students.

First port of call, of course, for anyone engaged on a research project, is the Bermuda National Library on Queen Street and few people will need an introduction to its circulation and reference departments covering a huge range of subjects. Just ask their helpful staff and they will guide you in the right direction. A book list on environmental topics was compiled for the library's booth at the Eden Project, and this would be a useful tool for any student.

Also well known to a vast army of students, but perhaps less so to other members of the general public, is the Bermuda College Library at the Stonington Campus in Paget, which has a variety of books on topics related to the environment, including recycling, pollution, the ozone layer and conservation. Access to information in both printed and CD-ROM format via the Social Issues Resources Series is also available, as is the widely-acclaimed Internet-based EBSCOhost system, which has thousands of articles on environment-relevant topics, including many on Earth Day itself. Log-in privileges to EBSCOhost are available to all College Library members, whether campus-based or members of the public. EBSCOhost is an international multi-disciplinary collection of more than 2000 periodical titles, and is available locally exclusively through the Bermuda College Library.

The College Library exists primarily to serve the curriculum-related needs of the students and staff of Bermuda College; however, it is also available to the general public for loans of materials as well as for quiet study and general research. The library is open seven days a week for a total of nearly 80 hours. Library membership is available for a lifetime fee of $25. For assistance, call 239-4033 or 239-4034.

Another resource for the serious researcher is the library at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, at Ferry Reach, St. George's. As an internationally renowned marine research station with a long history in Bermuda, the library's main focus is oceanography, with the collections aimed at students of college-level and above. Jo Bohanan is the librarian at BBSR, so if you want to find out about the library's resources, please give her a call at 298-1880.

Two other small scientific technical libraries for which I have responsibility as librarian with the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries, and which may not be so well known to the general public, are at the Botanical Gardens and BAMZ.

The library at the Botanical Gardens, naturally enough, has an emphasis on agriculture, horticulture and gardening in Bermuda, but also material on conservation and the environment, and topics of current interest, such as feral animals and GM crops. The Department's annual reports and monthly bulletins are treasure-houses of information back to the early 1900s.

The BAMZ library's main focus is Bermuda's natural history plus island ecology, marine biology, conservation and the environment. Other subject areas include animal husbandry and zoo-related topics. Although primarily for the support of staff and visiting scientists, the BAMZ library is also open to students of all ages, teachers, and members of the general public. Apart from subject binders on a wide range of natural history topics, there is also the Bermuda Natural History Bibliography (on computer and available on the Internet at www.bamz.org) which now has over 3,500 records. These are mainly scientific papers.

If you are working on a school project, writing a paper, or just curious about some aspect of Bermuda's natural history, give me a call at either 236-4201 (Botanical Gardens) or 293-2727 (BAMZ). I'll look forward to hearing from you! Penny Hill is the librarian with the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries.