FACT SHEET
DISPERSANTS BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.lumcon.edu/library/dispersants
Dispersants: An Electronic Bibliography on Effectiveness, Technological Advances, and
Toxicological Effects is an online, searchable annotated bibliography of all known published
research on oil spill dispersants from 1960 until mid-2006 developed by Louisiana Universities
Marine Consortium (LUMCON). There are approximately 2,000 citations comprising the
database including peer-reviewed research papers, government reports, conference proceedings
and gray literature. This bibliography contains annotated citations, not complete articles.
A number of steps were initiated to ensure the most comprehensive listing of citations related to
dispersant research possible in the bibliography. First, initial citations were compiled from the
following commercial and public index databases:
Scopus (Elsevier)
Academic Search Premier (Ebsco)
Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts)
Biological Abstracts (Thompson BIOSIS)
Current Contents (ISI/Thompson Scientific)
Google Scholar
OCLC FirstSearch
Toxnet (U.S. National Library of Medicine)
Zoological Record (Thompson BIOSIS)
Extraneous and duplicate citations were culled in the creation of the dataset.
Second, citations found in published bibliographies and selected papers were checked against the
dataset. These included publications related to oil spills and dispersants from the National
Research Council, as well as A Selected Bibliography on Oil Spill Dispersants (1978) and
Literature Review on the Effects of Oil and Oil Dispersants on Fishes (1984), among others.
Third, online National Library catalogs of the following countries were searched:
Australia
Canada
Finland
France
New Zealand
Norway
Scotland
Sweden
U.K.
Wales
FACT SHEET
Fourth, specialized libraries with no means of searching their collections via the web were
contacted to provide their holdings of dispersant-related literature:
Environment Canada
Centre de Documentation de Recherche et d'expérimentations (Cedre)
International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF)
Finally, publications lists found on web sites of various Government Agencies, consulting firms,
and NGOs were searched:
American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM)
Applied Science Associates, Inc.
Australian Maritime Safety Agency (AMSA)
Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI)
Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas)
European Maritime Safety Agency
Helsinki Commission (HELCOM)
International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES)
International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA)
International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF)
Interspill
Petroleum Environmental Research Forum (PERF)
Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council
Scientific & Environmental Associates, Inc.
SINTEF
S.L. Ross Environmental Research Ltd.
U.S. Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service
U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Technical Information Center
U.S. Department of Defense, Scientific & Technical Information Network
U.S. Department of Interior, Minerals Management Service
U.S. Department of Transportation, Transportation Research Information Services
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Information Management System
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gulf Ecology Division
We received invaluable guidance from leading researchers in oil spill dispersants which helped
to identify and provide additional material included in the bibliography.
All of these steps were essential in creating the most comprehensive collection of oil spill
dispersant research in the world.
Contact information: John Conover, LUMCON Library
(jconover@lumcon.edu)