Documentation for the CETACEA database of marine mammal literature references

Abstract

This documentation for the CETACEA database of marine mammal literature references updates and expands the original work by Watkins, Bird, Moore, and Tyack 1988 (Reference Database Marine Mammal Literature, Technical Report WHOI-88-2). The CETACEA database is a comprehensive index of literature references used to file, store, search, retrieve, and format the data on marine animals. Organization of the references is complementary to features developed by William E. Schevill for his library of older cetacea literature, having direct association of species with over 300 indexed subjects, and with observation dates, locations, etc. This documentation describes the operation of the database (360 records), including indexing, sorting, and retrieval information developed though continued use of these systems. SPECIES and SUBJECT HEADING lists with their codes have been updated. Other databases have also developed around these indexing and sorting strategies to complement the CETACEA database, including databases of animal sounds for both the recordng data and the acoustic spectral information stored in libraries of digital sound cuts.