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BIOSIS® Previews Biosystematic Codes and the Organism Classifier Term Conversions

Introduction

When BIOSIS reprocessed the back years files for the BIOSIS Previews database in 2003, they implemented a revised list of Biosystematic Codes and Organism Classifiers.  In particular they restructured the codes and many classifiers for Viruses.  Additionally BIOSIS replaced outdated codes with current codes (codes used only from 1969-1972, for example, were replaced with the appropriate current codes).  The result of these changes is consistent application of the Biosystematic Codes throughout the BIOSIS database, which will result in simpler searching and better retrieval.  The 'remapped' codes are only found in the XML version of the databases, specifically, in the <OrgClassifier> data element.  The complete, revised list of Biosystematic Codes and Organism Classifiers can be found in the BIOSIS Authority File (May 2003), in the 'Super Taxa & Biosystematic Codes' branch.

Many searchers and end-users of the BIOSIS files depend on the Biosystematic Codes for searching, and many Alerts, saved searches and similar pre-programmed functions are based on the Biosystematic Codes.  Since over 240 of these codes have now changed, it is very important that users be alerted to the changes, which became effective with the reload of the BIOSIS database.

The following three documents detail the Biosystematic Codes and the Organism Classifier term conversions.

1. All Old Codes:  full list of the old codes, in numeric order by the old code, with new code, new organism classifier term and complete Super Taxa term list [PDF, 2.62MB]
   
   
2. Changed codes:  only the codes that changed [PDF, 770KB]
   
   
3. Changed terms:  only the organism classifier terms that changed [PDF, 380KB]

Nearly all of the 'old codes' have been retired, and are not present in the new, revised list of Biosystematic Codes.  There are three exceptions to this:

03200was Animal Viruses (1969-1978) is now ssDNA Viruses
03400as Plant Viruses (1969-1978) is now dsRNA Viruses
03600was Bacterial Viruses (1969-1978) is now Positive Sense
ssRNA Viruses

Three codes from the old Biosystematic Code list have been retired without being replaced by new codes:

27000Paleobiology (1969-1992)
29000Paleobotany (1969-1992)
31000Paleozoology (1969-1992)

Citations which contained one or more of these three 'paleo' Biosystematic Codes have had the term "Fossil" added to the <MDKeyWorkString> indexing data element.