ALL-RUSSIAN GEOSCIENCE DATABASE SET

Russian and U.S. entities are assembling a comprehensive database that covers the entire body of upstream oil and gas literature from the countries of the former U.S.S.R. The database, GeoNeft, is being compiled by the American Geological Institute, Alexandria, Va., the All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (Viniti), Moscow, and Troika Energy Services, Dallas. GeoNeft is in large part modeled on AGI's GeoRef database, which since 1970 has been the standard

Aug. 15, 1994

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Russian and U.S. entities are assembling a comprehensive database that covers the entire body of upstream oil and gas literature from the countries of the former U.S.S.R.

The database, GeoNeft, is being compiled by the American Geological Institute, Alexandria, Va., the All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (Viniti), Moscow, and Troika Energy Services, Dallas.

GeoNeft is in large part modeled on AGI's GeoRef database, which since 1970 has been the standard computerized database for bibliographic citations in the geosciences.

GeoRef has included citations of some petroleum-related materials published in the former Soviet Union, but the list has been far from exhaustive.

GeoNeft goes beyond GeoRef in two ways.

First, it includes translations of all upstream oil and gas works included in Referativny Zhurnal (RZ), a periodical published by Viniti, which references all articles in the scientific literature of the former Soviet Union.

Second, GeoNeft will provide a local Moscow source for copies of referenced materials and a translation service.

While much more comprehensive than GeoRef in its FSU oil and gas coverage, GeoNeft follows GeoRef's formats and database conventions.

Subscribers to GeoNeft will receive monthly about 2,000 citations from petroleum related literature of the FSU, including patents and doctoral dissertations.

The citations cover petroleum geology, geophysics, geochemistry, regional geology, and petroleum engineering. They are drawn via RZ from the following sources:

Research and trade journals, special conference proceedings and topical corrections, proceedings and reports of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academies in the former Soviet republics, and scientific societies, transactions of research institutes, transactions of institutes of higher education, information series, and patent listings.

GeoNeft will also cover RZ-referenced holdings of the unpublished "Geologic Fund" of the Russian Federation. These reports, maps, diagrams, and cross sections are in many cases the equivalent of an in-house proprietary work product of oil companies, AGI said.

GeoNeft subscribers will receive about three years of material each year. GeoNeft subscribers in 1994 will receive citations and abstracts covering the literature published in 1994, 1993, and 1992; in 1995 they will also receive materials from 1991 and 1990.

GeoNeft also allows subscribers to order copies of all referenced articles. It provides technical translation and document delivery services handled by bilingual engineers, geologists, and geophysicists in Troika's Moscow office.