Abstract:
Until recently timbers used for Structural purposes were limited to timber species that
had been “tried and tested” over a long period of time. Today, however, these timbers
are scarce and expensive, and it has become necessary to use either lesser known
indigenous timber species or imported varieties of timber. The lack of easily
accessible information on the local varieties of timbers has led to a reluctance by some
potential users of timber to use the indigenous varieties for structural purposes.
Information relating to different aspects of nearly 300 indigenous species is available
from different sources. There is however a need to collate and integrate this
information and present it in an easily accessible single source. A database is a
suitable form of storage of the information, since it not only stores the information in
an easily retrievable format that can be updated but also can be queried, to select
suitable species for specific end uses or to find suitable end uses for a given species.
