Miscellaneous

Oberly Award 1991

The 1991 Oberly Award for Bibliography in the Agricultural Sciences is given in odd-numbered years to the authors of an outstanding English-language bibliography in the field of agriculture or one of the related sciences.

The 1991 winners are Michael J. Balick and Hans T. Beck for their work Useful Palms of the World: A synoptic bibliography, published by Columbia University Press, 1990 (724 pp., $50, ISBN 0-231-06676-7). The bibliography, consisting of more than 1,000 references, displayed excellent intellectual effort in the introductory materials, citation selection and abstracting and access points. Citations represent a broad range of sources, languages and time periods. It is a publication that makes a strong contribution to research in the field of economic botany.

Dr. Balick is Director of the Institute of Economic Botany and Philecology Curator of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden. He is also a visiting professor at Yale University and the City University of New York Graduate School. Over the pest 15 years he has conducted extensive field research on the uses of neotropical palms.

Hans T. Beck is a five-time recipient of the Institute of Economic Botany Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the New York Botanical Garden. He will soon receive his Ph.D. in plant systematics and economic botany from the City University of New York Graduate School.

The Oberly Award Committee has also designated as honorable mention winners for 1991 Evelyn Mathias-Mundy and Constance M. McCorkle for Ethnoveterinary Medicine: An annotated bibliography. Dr. Mathias-Mundy is a German veterinarian with extensive experience in Southeast Asia. Dr. McCorkle is an anthropologist specializing in agricultural research and development in Africa and Latin America. Their work consists of a review article and 261 references that created a pioneer information source for this hybrid field of study. The annotated and indexed references are drawn from many international sources, including grey literature. The 209-page book is published by the Technology & Social Change Program, lowa State University, Ames, as no. 6 in the "Bibliographies in Technology and Social Change" series $18, ISBN 0-945271-16-6). Dr. Mathias-Mundy is associated with the Technology & Social Change Program. Dr. McCorkle is Program Director of the A.l.D. (Agency for International Development) Staff Strengthening Through Environmental Training Program, Arlington, VA.

Important Notice

On page 50 of gate 1/91 we reported on the Institute for Transportation and Development (ITDP) and its endeavours to promote the use of non-motorized transport, and in particular bicycles, in rural areas of the Third World.

The article evidently gave numerous readers the impression that ITDP would supply bicycles free of charge on request. This is not the case and we wish to emphasize that ITDP is not a donor organization. - Ed.