NEMA Library

The NEMA Library was established in 1996 under the Division of Information and Monitoring. It inherited the bulk of its collection from The National Information Centre, which was under the then Ministry of Environment.

The services in the Library include Selective Dissemination of Information, Reference, Internet Searches, Current Awareness and Materials Lending. Some limited training is offered on large groups of users on special arrangement with the Librarian. The Library also supplies a limited number of brochures, books, pamphlets, and reports, produced by the organisation to the public as part of environmental awareness. Members of the public are free to consult any materials required for reference but it is only members of staff who are allowed to take materials on loan for a limited period of time.

The Collection

The Library’s main purpose is to develop and maintain a collection of scientific and technical information on the state of environment both nationally and internationally, which information assists the staff of NEMA in analysing trends, assessing problems and promoting activities leading to sustainable development in the field of environment as well as making it available for research purposes.The collection is composed of books, periodicals, reports CD ROMs Audio Cassettes, and Video Tapes. Primary emphasis in collection development has been given to the subject areas most closely related to environment and some government publications. Those related to environment include the following:Atmosphere and climate, Terrestrial ecosystem, Forestry ecosystem, Arid land and desertification, Bio diversity, Protected areas, Water, wetlands, marine environment, Environment and development, Agriculture, Energy, Industry, Pollution and waste, Environmental law, Chemical and biochemical processes G I S and remote sensing Materials acquired by the Library are classified according to the INFOTERRA Thesaurus and are entered into the library database to ease retrieval. Periodical literature is organised according to the environmental subjects and are placed together with the corresponding subjects. Government publications are arranged according to titles.