United States National Agricultural Library
Encyclopedia
The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a National Library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located in Beltsville, Maryland
, it is one of four national libraries of the United States (along with the Library of Congress
, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Library of Education). It is also the coordinator for the Agriculture Network Information Center
, a national network of state land-grant institutions
and coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field libraries.
NAL was established on May 15, 1862 by the signing of the Organic Act by Abraham Lincoln
. It served as a departmental library until 1962, when the Secretary of Agriculture officially designated it as the National Agricultural Library. The first librarian, appointed in 1867, was Aaron B. Grosh
, one of the founders of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry.
NAL was established as the U.S. Department of Agriculture Library on May 15, 1862 by the signing of the Organic Act by Abraham Lincoln
. In 1863, the library's collection comprised 1,000 volumes that had been transferred from the U.S. Patent Office's Agricultural Division. By 1889, the library's collection had increased to 20,000 volumes, and a librarian from Amherst College was hired to create a classification system
for the library's collection. At this time, the library was located on the second floor of the Department of Agriculture's main building. In 1893, William Cutter was hired as Librarian of the Department, and he began a reorganization effort to modernize the library and improve its effectiveness. His primary achievement was consolidating the library's collection of 38,000 volumes into one central library; previously, more than half of the library's collection was held in divisional libraries across the United States. By 1900, the library's collection contained 68,000 volumes, and in 1915, the library was moved to a larger facility in the Bieber Office Building at 1358 B Street SW, Washington DC. The library moved again in 1932 to facilities in the USDA's South Building on Independence Avenue.
In 1934, the collection reached 250,000 volumes in size, and the library began participating in the Bibliofilm Service, which, along with the American Documentation Institute
and the Science Service, supplied microfilm copies of articles to scientists. This was the first large-scale attempt by a library to provide copies of library materials to patrons rather than the original documents, and during its first year, over 300,000 copies were distributed.
During World War II
, the Department of Agriculture underwent reorganization to address wartime needs. The library, which had been decentralized since 1920, was consolidated into a central facility under the direction of Department Librarian Ralph R. Shaw
.
On May 23, 1962, the 100th anniversary of the library's establishment, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman
officially designated the library as the National Agricultural Library, making it the third national library
in the United States. In 1964, funds were appropriated by Congress to begin planning for a new library facility in Beltsville, Maryland on the grounds of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Construction on the new facility began in 1965, and it first opened in 1969. In 2000, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman
designated the building as the Abraham Lincoln Building.
in Beltsville, Maryland. NAL also operates a Washington D.C. branch known as the DC Reference Center, which is located in the USDA's South Building.
of agricultural literature in the world. It contains more than 4.1 million records for publications dating as far back as the 15th century. 78 percent of the records are for journal articles and book chapters, while 22 percent cover full-length books, journals, maps, electronic resources, and audiovisual materials. The database indexes publications from many disciplines related to agriculture, including veterinary sciences, entomology, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, economics, food and human nutrition, and environmental sciences.
AGRICOLA originated in 1942 as the Bibliography of Agriculture, a printed index of article citation records. It was first digitized in 1970, when records were placed on magnetic tapes rather than reproducing them manually. The name was changed to AGRICOLA at this time, and the records were made available through database vendors such as Dialog and OCLC. In 1998, it became available to the general public for free on the World Wide Web.
Beltsville, Maryland
Beltsville is a census-designated place in northern Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 15,691 at the 2000 census. Beltsville includes the unincorporated community of Vansville.-Geography:...
, it is one of four national libraries of the United States (along with the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Library of Education). It is also the coordinator for the Agriculture Network Information Center
Agriculture Network Information Center
The Agriculture Network Information Center Alliance was formed in 1995 by a group of four land grant institutions - Cornell University, Iowa State University, University of Arizona, and University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library . In...
, a national network of state land-grant institutions
Land-grant university
Land-grant universities are institutions of higher education in the United States designated by each state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890....
and coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field libraries.
NAL was established on May 15, 1862 by the signing of the Organic Act by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. It served as a departmental library until 1962, when the Secretary of Agriculture officially designated it as the National Agricultural Library. The first librarian, appointed in 1867, was Aaron B. Grosh
Aaron B. Grosh
Reverend Aaron Burt Grosh , a Universalist minister, was one of the seven founders of the Grange. He had a major part in the design of the Grange ritual and was also responsible for the various songs used during various celebrations of the Grange...
, one of the founders of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry.
History
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. In 1863, the library's collection comprised 1,000 volumes that had been transferred from the U.S. Patent Office's Agricultural Division. By 1889, the library's collection had increased to 20,000 volumes, and a librarian from Amherst College was hired to create a classification system
Library classification
A library classification is a system of coding and organizing documents or library materials according to their subject and allocating a call number to that information resource...
for the library's collection. At this time, the library was located on the second floor of the Department of Agriculture's main building. In 1893, William Cutter was hired as Librarian of the Department, and he began a reorganization effort to modernize the library and improve its effectiveness. His primary achievement was consolidating the library's collection of 38,000 volumes into one central library; previously, more than half of the library's collection was held in divisional libraries across the United States. By 1900, the library's collection contained 68,000 volumes, and in 1915, the library was moved to a larger facility in the Bieber Office Building at 1358 B Street SW, Washington DC. The library moved again in 1932 to facilities in the USDA's South Building on Independence Avenue.
In 1934, the collection reached 250,000 volumes in size, and the library began participating in the Bibliofilm Service, which, along with the American Documentation Institute
American Documentation Institute
The American Documentation Institute was founded by Watson Davis in 1935 as Documentation Institute which changed its name to the American Documentation Institute in 1937...
and the Science Service, supplied microfilm copies of articles to scientists. This was the first large-scale attempt by a library to provide copies of library materials to patrons rather than the original documents, and during its first year, over 300,000 copies were distributed.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Department of Agriculture underwent reorganization to address wartime needs. The library, which had been decentralized since 1920, was consolidated into a central facility under the direction of Department Librarian Ralph R. Shaw
Ralph R. Shaw (librarian)
Ralph R. Shaw was a librarian, a publisher, and an innovator in library science.He married his first wife Viola Susan Leff in 1929 and married his second wife, Mary McChesney Andrews in 1969.- Scarecrow Press :...
.
On May 23, 1962, the 100th anniversary of the library's establishment, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman
Orville Freeman
Orville Lothrop Freeman was an American Democratic politician who served as the 29th Governor of Minnesota from January 5, 1955 to January 2, 1961, and as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1961 to 1969 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson...
officially designated the library as the National Agricultural Library, making it the third national library
National library
A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books...
in the United States. In 1964, funds were appropriated by Congress to begin planning for a new library facility in Beltsville, Maryland on the grounds of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Construction on the new facility began in 1965, and it first opened in 1969. In 2000, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman
Dan Glickman
Daniel Robert "Dan" Glickman is an American businessman and politician. He served as the United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1995 until 2001, prior to which he represented the Fourth Congressional District of Kansas as a Democrat in Congress for 18 years. He was Chairman and CEO of the...
designated the building as the Abraham Lincoln Building.
Librarians of the Department of Agriculture
- Aaron B. GroshAaron B. GroshReverend Aaron Burt Grosh , a Universalist minister, was one of the seven founders of the Grange. He had a major part in the design of the Grange ritual and was also responsible for the various songs used during various celebrations of the Grange...
(1867–1869) - Stuart Eldridge (1869–1871)
- John B. Russell (1871–1877)
- Ernestine H. Stevens (1877–1893)
- William P. Cutter (1893–1901)
- Josephine Clark (1901–1907)
- Claribel Barnett (1907–1940)
- Ralph R. ShawRalph R. Shaw (librarian)Ralph R. Shaw was a librarian, a publisher, and an innovator in library science.He married his first wife Viola Susan Leff in 1929 and married his second wife, Mary McChesney Andrews in 1969.- Scarecrow Press :...
(1940–1954) - Foster E. MohrhardtFoster E. MohrhardtFoster E. Mohrhardt was a United States librarian. He had a long an illustrious career in library and information science as a scholar, organizer and diplomat, and was listed by American Libraries among "100 Leaders we had in the 20th Century"....
(1954–1968) - John Sherrod (1968–1973)
- Richard Farley (1973–1983)
- Joseph Howard (1983–1994)
- Pamela Q.J. Andre (1994–2002)
- Peter Young (2002–2008)
- Simon Y. Liu (2010–)
Facilities
The main library is housed in the Abraham Lincoln Building, a seventeen-story facility on the grounds of the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research CenterHenry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, or BARC, is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It is located at in Beltsville, Maryland, and is named for Henry A. Wallace, former United States vice president and secretary of...
in Beltsville, Maryland. NAL also operates a Washington D.C. branch known as the DC Reference Center, which is located in the USDA's South Building.
AGRICOLA
NAL maintains AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access), the largest bibliographic databaseBibliographic database
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, patents, books, etc...
of agricultural literature in the world. It contains more than 4.1 million records for publications dating as far back as the 15th century. 78 percent of the records are for journal articles and book chapters, while 22 percent cover full-length books, journals, maps, electronic resources, and audiovisual materials. The database indexes publications from many disciplines related to agriculture, including veterinary sciences, entomology, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, economics, food and human nutrition, and environmental sciences.
AGRICOLA originated in 1942 as the Bibliography of Agriculture, a printed index of article citation records. It was first digitized in 1970, when records were placed on magnetic tapes rather than reproducing them manually. The name was changed to AGRICOLA at this time, and the records were made available through database vendors such as Dialog and OCLC. In 1998, it became available to the general public for free on the World Wide Web.
National Agricultural Library Digital Repository
The NAL Digital Repository http://naldr.nal.usda.gov, created in April 2006, serves as a digital archive of historical USDA documents. The repository contains over 600,000 pages of digitized texts. Publications contained in the repository include the issues of the Journal of Agricultural Research from 1913–1949 and the archives of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture dating back to 1894.Information Centers
NAL also houses several specialized information centers, which provide access to comprehensive and essential information resources focusing on the specific aspects of agricultural subjects. In addition to the general reference services available at NAL, each center offers Internet access to resources enhancing information availability and dissemination. The centers have staff available to serve customers on-site as well as by phone, fax or email. The Information Centers at the National Agricultural Library include:- Alternative Farming Systems Information Center
- Animal Welfare Information Center
- Food and Nutrition Information Center
- SNAP-Ed Connection
- Healthy School Meals Resource System
- International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements Database (IBIDS)
- Nutrition.gov
- WIC Works Resource System
- Food Safety Information Center
- National Invasive Species Information Center
- Rural Information Center
- Water Quality Information Center