In an effort to reach an expanded audience for the Tall Timbers E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database, the Library is helping create a new web-based gateway for fire information called the Southern Fire Portal (SFP). The goal of the SFP is to provide portal users with single point access to fire data, documents, projects, tools, and websites related to fire and natural resource management in the southern United States. A diverse group of federal, national, regional, and state organizations is partnering to create and publicize the SFP. The Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Database and the Southern Research Station’s online Encyclopedia of Southern Fire Science are key components of the SFP. The Joint Fire Sciences Program (JFSP) is a major source of funding for the SFP project. To learn more about the SFP and its Partners and Supporters, please visit the web site at http://frames.nbii.gov/southernfire.

Tall Timbers supports increased visibility for the Tall Timbers E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database which has been accessible on the Tall Timbers web site since 1998. The database provides access to bibliographic records for a unique, extensive collection of fire ecology literature. Citations for all papers (with abstracts) from 22 Proceedings of the Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conferences are in the database. The donation of personal research collections from E.V. Komarek and H.L. Stoddard, founders of Tall Timbers, was the original impetus for the Tall Timbers Board of Trustees to mandate creation of a computerized bibliographic database. Since its inception in 1987, the database has been continually expanded under direction of the Tall Timbers librarian. Although international in scope, the database emphasizes the southeastern United States, the USA, and North America. Historical and current works are included. As of January 2008, there are nearly 22,000 citations in the database and nearly 12,000 abstracts. The Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Thesaurus is the tool created by the library for indexing database records.

Document delivery of materials cited in the database is not provided. Users are encouraged to access local library resources or a commercial document delivery service to obtain materials listed in the database. Most URLs in database records lead to publisher’s Web sites. In some recent records, links to PDFs are available.