Paper given at the IAMSLIC annual conference in 1993 in Bethesda, MD.The endangered salmon crisis in the Pacific Northwest has researchers scouring the scientific and institutional literature for data, analysis and information. The accessible publications are the foundation for much of the current work and debate. But, older materials and institutionally-generated information containing unique data are harder to locate. To accurately document the history of the Columbia River salmon, all information -- historical, contenporary, obscure and mainstreams- should be studied. One librarian's concerns with the interdisciplinary nature of the issue, the variety of information sources, and the amount of information generated are discussed and related to developing a small special collection on the ESA salmon literature.