Preserving Land-Grant Agricultural Documents: A Guide for the Preparation of Microfilming

The need to preserve land-grant agricultural documents has been recognized for years, but only within the last decade has some attempt been made on the national level to organize the preservation effort. In the beginning a Memorandum of Understanding between the Land- Grant College and University Libraries and the United States Department of Agriculture was drafted: signatory land-grant libraries agreed to collect, store and provide ready access to complete files of the major serial publications of their state agricultural experiment stations, extension service, and colleges of agriculture (undated Memorandum of Understanding); to provide photocopies; brief reference and bibliographic assistance on these publications. In return NAL* would coordinate the completion of the state\u27s file and compile an annual list of participants for all land-grant libraries. Kentucky was not one of the signators to this agreement. The decision was made at Kentucky not to participate for one reason: there was no space to keep the duplicate copies of Kentucky holdings. Space could have been made by discarding land-grant agricultural publications from other states, but we hesitated to do that until it was established which states were entering into this agreement. Other states must have felt the·same way for in the early 1970\u27s the Memorandum of Understanding was replaced by Cooperative Agreements. Under these agreements land-grant college and university libraries agreed to collect files of their agricultural documents for purposes of microfilming as complete a file as possible through 1969. NAL coordinated the project and contributed to the cost of the filming. The New England States were the first to organize and as a group entered into the cooperative agreement with the New England Board of Higher Education coordinating the project. Then Kentucky, Florida and California followed as independent groups. The University of Kentucky signed a cooperative agreement with the National Agricultural Library on June 17, 1974. The agreement was to be in effect until July 30, 1975. On July 30, 1976 the first rolls of film reached the University of Kentucky after two years of blood, sweat and tears. I made the decision to enter into the agreement on the advice of the former Agricultural Librarian of the University of Kentucky. At the time I had been acting Agricultural Librarian for two months and I barely knew what it was we were getting into. It was only after I had been involved in the project for several months that I realized the importance of the project to which I had committed myself and my staff. Many of our early Kentucky agricultural publications had deteriorated and with prolonged use would have disintegrated. Had we put off the preservation effort much longer, there would have been nothing to preserve. It is because I believe in this project that I have taken the time to write this paper. It is intended merely as a guide with suggestions that I would have welcomed when we were involved in the microfilming. I have not gone into the technical specifications for the microfilm or the jargon used in filming. This material is very adequately covered in Microfilming Agricultural Documents stresses the bibliographic history and the preparation of the documents for filming. Although each group has to work out its own system, perhaps some of the aggravation suffered at Kentucky can be avoided by the use of this guide. It must be remembered that this document was prepared from an individual land-grant institution\u27s point of view. We did not film our documents as part of a group of institutions; therefore, certain procedures may not fit a group situation. I have tried to be as general as possible to avoid these conflicts. Three years have now passed since we signed our cooperative agreement. During that period of time so many people have been involved that it would be impossible to name them all. My deepest appreciation must go to my staff. Without their support and interest this project would hot have been completed. I would also like to thank Ms. Beverly Fiorentino at Graphic Microfilms, who advised me from a filmer\u27s point of view, and Mr. Joseph Duncan, our Experiment Station editor, who took time out of his busy schedule to edit this guide

From Books to Binary: Migrating from a Traditional Library to an Electronic Information Center

The opening of the W. T. Young library at the University of Kentucky provides a unique opportunity for the College of Agriculture and the library. Most of the agricultural print materials will be housed in the new library and the 10,000 square feet that now houses the Agriculture Library will be turned into the Agricultural Information Center (AIC). The AIC is described as a corporate information center supporting the academic enterprise. This presentation will chronicle the migration, including the involvement of the faculty, the physical planning and the re-engineering of the staff to move into this dynamic environment

Document Availability and Delivery: Problems and Prospects for Developing Countries

The central theme of this paper was originally developed for the Third Conference on Librarians in International Development held at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, U.S.A. in May of 1991 . The idea for the paper had its roots in the Vllth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Librarians and Documentalists (IAALD) where Syed Salim Agha presented a paper entitled Effecting Information Transfer Through the Document Delivery Process in South East Asia. In that paper Syed Salim Agha outlined the barriers to document delivery along with potential solutions. His presentation left a lasting impression and six years later I found myself building on that paper for a presentation. Now, a decade later I am still building on his presentation. I am pleased to be submitting this paper for a volume honoring the career of Syed Salim Agha

Communicating Agricultural Information in Remote Places: Part I

Proceedings of the IXth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists. January 23-26, 1995. Melbourne, Australia

The State of BKS-B Libraries 1989: A Report of Progress Including Recommendations for Future Development

This report contains the itinerary and activities of Ms. Antoinette Paris Powell from 19 January - 15 March 1989 when she worked with the librarians and library staffs of the 11 BKS-B institutions. She spent the first part of her visit conducting a five and one-half day seminar in library management for 33 BKS-B library personnel. She followed this with a visit to each BKS-B library to consult with rectors and library officials on library problems, objectives and plans. Ms. Powell evaluated each library and its operations. This publication contains her overall evaluation of the library system in BKS-B institutions and specific recommendations for each library as well interlibrary BKS-B and programs for libraries. Ms. Powell previously visited and surveyed libraries in 10 BKS-B institutions in February and March 1985. Her findings and recommendations are contained in WUAE Project Short Term Specialist Report No. 18, Assessment and Recommendations Regarding BKS-B Libraries. During her visits to BKS-B libraries in February and March 1989 she documented changes that occured during the past four years. Comparisons between periods and with follow-up on recommendations made in 1985 are also shown in this report. Ms. Powell has been Head Librarian, Agriculture Library, University of Kentucky since 1974, She has had extensive experience in library management, organization, automation, space management, budgeting, planning staffing and training. Ms. Powell received B.A. and M.A. degrees in Library Science from the University of Kentucky