Resources and Library:

American Trails Searchable Trails and Greenways Bibliography

Search the Bibliography | Other Trails Bibliographies & Resources

Compiled by Jim Schmid

In the old days— before the Internet— trail publications were hard to track down. You had to visit a library to conduct searches, keep up with dozens of newsletters, or depend on your rail trail or academic contacts to keep you posted on current trail publications.

Now with the Internet, searching for current and even past trails literature is a breeze. You can browse (surf) or borrow (download) books, articles, and other publications all with your modem. Along with the Library of Congress, most public and university libraries are online offering searchable catalogs and interlibrary loans of publications. And now many trail managing agencies and trail organizations have their own web sites containing trails and greenways literature that you can download or order.

An excellent starting point for your trails research is our searchable bibliography containing over 2,400 trails— and greenways-related publications collected and compiled by Jim Schmid. This work was begun when he was an employee of South Carolina Dept. of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism, and he is continuing the work on a volunteer basis. Jim used Procite Bibliographic software to organize the publications under the following broad categories: book, conference proceedings, dissertation/thesis, journal-article, journal-whole, report, and video. Each citation lists the standard information like author, title, date, length, etc. What makes this bibliography special is Jim wrote an abstract and assigned keywords (over 150) for each citation. He also lists where he found the publication to help you find your own copy.

Other Trails Bibliographies & Resources

See our page of numerous other bibliographies, libraries, and bookstores that will help your search for trails and greenways resources. Finding a good bibliography puts you a step ahead in the research game; somebody else has already done a lot of work on your behalf. There's a lot of information out there and hopefully these resources will help narrow the search for the information you need.