Cobscook Bibliography User's Guide

User's Guide to Index

An index to the Cobscook Bay Bibliography based on keywords in the database has been developed to assist the user in finding references regarding a particular subject. Please note the following guidelines:

? Keywords: A complete list of keywords used in the Bibliography arranged by subject heading is included for user reference. Keywords follow each abstract in the Bibliography in bold and italic font.

? Geographical references: Due to the sheer number of references with the keywords Passamaquoddy, Quoddy, Gulf of Maine, Fundy and Northwest Atlantic, these words were not included in the index. Cobscook references, however, were included due to the focus of the Bibliography on Cobscook Bay. More specific geographical references such as Eastport and Grand Manan are listed in the index. The user can browse the geographic keywords within the actual bibliography to find the abstracts which relate to the broader geographical references.

? Keyword nesting: There are many examples throughout the bibliography of keyword nesting, particularly regarding geographical and taxonomic references. For example: any Eastport reference would also have the keywords Cobscook and Quoddy, any St. Croix reference would also have the keyword Fundy. Likewise taxonomically, any reference about clams would also have the keywords bivalves, molluscs, invertebrates and fauna and any reference about porpoises would also have the keywords cetacea, mammals, vertebrates and fauna. The categorical list of keywords includes the nesting rules for each keyword.

? See also references: In order to avoid double listing, the index includes many See also... references. For example, if the user looks up Marine Mammals, it says See also Cetacea, Pinniped. Listed under Marine Mammals are only those references that are generally about marine mammals and not a particular taxon. So if the user is interested in porpoises and was referred to Cetacea, at Cetacea it says See also Porpoises, Dolphins, Whales. The reference about porpoises will only be listed under Porpoise in the index, not Cetacea or Marine Mammals.

? Breakdown of index keywords: Some keywords, especially those in the Biological Studies category, were broken down into subcategories for easier retrieval. For example if the user looks up Feeding, the index heading is broken down into Feeding of Mammals, Birds, Fish and Invertebrates. Aquaculture and Fisheries are additional examples of index heading breakdowns.