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EDITOR'S SUMMARY Before the field of bioinformatics was imagined, zoologist Herbert Haviland Field advanced the Concilium Bibliographicum, a comprehensive bibliographic resource for zoology. Born in New York to a wealthy family, Field pursued his early interest in science and earned multiple degrees but was frustrated by the difficulty of searching publications. Field developed a vision and plan for the Concilium, garnering financial support from donors and his family's resources and implementing the young Universal Decimal Classification for the project. Despite contacts with scientists throughout Europe, reliable funding for the Concilium eluded him. At the start of World War I, Field shifted his attention to relief missions, eventually using his international social position and language skills in commerce, the intelligence field and ultimately peace efforts. Attempts to rebuild the Concilium after the war failed, and Field died of influenza in 1921 at age 53, falling short of his goal to use the best technology of the day to improve information access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EDITOR'S SUMMARY Cognizant of the benefits and challenges of deep bibliographical searching for zoological resources, Herbert Haviland Field, an American zoologist, established the Concilium Bibliographicum in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1895. The Concilium provided bibliographic data on articles from over 2,000 journals in 20 languages and developed the zoology section of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) system, a new system in 1895 that improved search through flexible ordering of topical facets. The institute published annual indexes of zoological literature that could be tailored for specific interests; it later introduced card files for new zoological species and other services. But the Concilium faced insurmountable challenges. Poor funding, international hostilities leading to World War I and Field's death in 1921 handicapped daily operations, affecting the Concilium's language use policy, currency and comprehensiveness of references and staffing to maintain the index. An admirable effort that would have been well suited to modern digital solutions, the Concilium was suspended during the war and ceased operations in 1940. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]