Agricultural Library : Setting Up an Ag Collection

Setting Up an Agricultural Collection

Ideally, a collection could be housed in one area of a library to facilitate browsing and make a strong visual impact. In our situation the library did not have the physical space to house a stand alone collection so the materials were integrated. To help differentiate the collection materials, a book plate was placed on each material as well as a brightly colored spine sticker.
Sample Book Plate (printed 3" x 5") (PSD-Adobe Photoshop)
Sample Spine Sticker (printed 1" x 1")

The collection was advertised through local newspapers, workshop flyers, a poster (view, large JPEG , PSD) and a bookmark (Microsoft Publisher, Adobe PDF)

In the beginning of the project we had also hoped to "tag" each material in the electronic catalog with a keyword phrase such as "Ag Collection". This would allow a catalog search to generate a list of collection materials for browsing and targeted usage tracking. Though this may be possible with some library's systems it turned out to not be feasible in our project.

While a collection is a great resource, an agriculturally aware library staff is also important. When a patron asks a question at the desk and the librarian has not been made aware of local agriculture support networks like extension that possible referral is lost. Many of today's new farmers have higher educations and/or are beginning second careers and are seeking out sources of information. The local library is an obvious stop in that process.

Two Librarians from Mann library (Cornell University's college of Agriculture and Life Sciences library) lead an hour and a half discussion at the SALS librarians' monthly meeting. They discussed agricultural resources available on the internet for information gathering and addressed questions the librarians had on dealing with the local agricultural community. Local area ag educators (high school teachers, Extension staff, etc.) were also invited. The workshop was part of the University's outreach requiring only overnight accomidations and meals to be supplied. Web Resources for Agriculture Handout and meeting flyer (Microsoft Word, PDF)

Issues raised by the meeting were:

• The need to educate librarians on local ag support networks (Extension and other non-profits). We should have given a presentation a month or two earlier introducing the librarians to the local support network and then followed up with the broader ag resources training.
• The difficulty of identifing what resources are appropriate to buy or where to buy them from, for librarians with purchase power.
• The difficulty in knowing whether patrons are part of the agricultural community.

This project is trying to address the second issue with a material and source lists.

As a result of the workshop, Extension received referrals from Crandall library, calls from the reference desk on ag-related questions, and people stopping in to purchase materials they had borrowed from the library. Extension is now able to refer people to specific references in the library; regarding topics they requested information on or as follow up to a class or meeting.