About APIRS
Aquatic Plant Information Retrieval System (APIRS)
After 25 years of assiduous work, the Aquatic Plant Information Retrieval System (APIRS) database now includes more than 65,000 citations, and continues to be the largest free database of its kind in the world. Beginning as a mainframe, punch-card database of a few hundred references about water hyacinths, the APIRS database now contains citation and keyword records for scientific articles and reports about uncounted species of aquatic, wetland and invasive plants. The database has been used many thousands of times by researchers, government agencies, companies, teachers, students and private groups and individuals. Users can request searches of the database or they can access the database themselves, online.
The database originally was meant to be a source of information for "aquatic weed" workers in developing countries, and was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development for that purpose. It quickly became a source of information for workers in Florida as well, gaining the support of the then Bureau of Aquatic Plant Management of the Florida Department of Natural Resources (now the Bureau of Invasive Plant Management of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection). USAID ceased sponsorship of the database in the early 1980s.
The DEP Bureau continues to be a primary sponsor of the APIRS program. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Aquatic Plant Control Research Program has provided significant support in the past. The program also is supported by the St. Johns River Water Management District, with occasional special-project support coming from other agencies and companies such Cerexagri-Nisso LLC.
APIRS was conceived of and developed by Mr. Victor Ramey. Ms. Karen Brown manages the database. Mrs. Mary Langeland catalogues all materials placed in the database.
Ms. Lynda Dillon adds newly cataloged entries to the database.
In late 2006, the APIRS database was converted to a new system by Dima Martynyuk. The system now runs on MySQL with php as an interface, allowing for greater flexibility and stability compared to the antiquated BRS/Search implementation.
