Into the Future….

National Digital Library for Agriculture

Peter R. YoungDirector, National Agricultural Library

The ADEC Mission

… Through ADEC, members engage in a teaching and learning model that epitomizes a university without walls that is open, accessible, and flexible. The model seeks to provide instructional delivery and/or access anywhere, anytime, and to virtually anyone who seeks it….

A university without walls needs a library

without walls!

National Digital Library for Agriculture is Envisioned to Be:

• Comprehensive digital collections• Accessed by robust search engines• Linked to analytical tools• Built on a network of partnerships• Coordinated by NAL

Today’s NDLA Building Blocks

• AgNIC– Partnership network

• AgSpace– USDA institutional repository

• NALT – The NAL Agricultural Thesaurus– Western hemisphere Spanish

version to be released in May

• DigiTop– Online access to licensed

scientific literature and databases for USDA employees

AgNIC

• Selected quality online resources

• Online reference services• Calendar of agricultural

conferences and meetings• International scope

An alliance of partners to

share information,

resources, and technology

ADEC Participation in AgNIC

• Institutional Membership– Jan Poley, incoming

Chair

• ADEC Member Institutions– 29 University and College

partners– 2 international university

and college partners << More >>

AgSpaceUSDA’s Digital Repository

• Permanent access to the digital publications of USDA researchers– Currently has the 101 most cited

publications, and growing…• AgSpace content linked to

AGRICOLA records• AgSpace content is open to

Internet search engines for greater visibility

Public Access to Science Act

SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds that— (1) the United States Government funds basic research with the intention and the belief that the new ideas and discoveries that result from the research will improve the lives and welfare of the people of the United States and around the world; (2) works of the United States Government are beyond the reach of copyright protection so that they will be freely available for the benefit of the people of the United States; (3) the United States Government spends $45,000,000,000 a year to support scientific and medical research whose product is new knowledge for the public benefit; (4) the Internet makes it possible for this information to be promptly available not only to every scientist and physician who could use it to further the public good, but to every person with access to the Internet at home, in school, or in a library; and (5) United States Government funded research belongs to, and should be freely available to, every person in the United States.

Introduced June 26, 2003

NAL Thesaurus

• Includes more than 68,000 terms and a glossary of 2,400 definitions

• Used by:– NAL’s AGRICOLA database; information

center Web sites; AgSpace; and the NDLA– AgNIC, Forest Service and other

governmental and non-governmental services

A controlled vocabulary used to describe and organize agricultural information, which is particularly important in the digital environment to improve the retrieval of relevant materials.

Spanish Language Thesaurus and Glossary

• To be released online in May 2007 http://nal.usda.gov/services

• Complete translation of the Thesaurus and Glossary Web sites into Spanish

• Future editions will change in response to input from the Spanish speaking agricultural community and NAL cooperators

Developed as part of a Specific Cooperative Agree-ment between NAL and ADEC. ADEC contracted with a Chilean linguistic professor.

Translated With a Western Hemisphere Perspective

DigiTop USDA’s Digital Desktop Library

• Journals (~ 2400)• Databases

– AGRICOLA, BIOSIS, CABI, Fish & Fisheries Worldwide, Food Science & Technology Abstracts, GeoRef, GEOBASE, and more …

• Directories• Dictionaries / Encylopedias• Laws and Regulations• Economics and Statistics

Food Related DigiTop Journals

J. Food Biochem.

J. Food Safety

Food & Chem. Tox.

Food Chemistry

Food Biophysics

Food Control

Food Microbiol.

Food Policy

Food Qual. & Pref.

Food Sci. & Tech.

Food Service Tech.

Food Tech. & Biotech

….

Why Support Libraries?

10.8%

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science review of the FY 2008 Federal R&D budget proposals.

Because, we need to know

“Pity the Scientist Who Discovers the Discovered” -- Gina Kolata

New York Times, Sunday, February 5, 2006

“Unintentional Duplication of Research” – John Martyn

New Scientist 21(no. 377) Feb. 6, 1964, pg 338

And, for the opportunities: Tools to manage information and enhance access to information

• Rank by document contents• Rank by authority• Rank by reference authority• Eliminate redundancy• Determine differences

among documents• Identify novelty with

respect to an individual• Abstract the content of

document collections• Data-mine[ing]• Reduce textual information

to visual presentation• Populate analytic model• Support predictive tasks• Discover abnormal

situations

Knowledge Lost in InformationReport of an NSF Workshop June 2003

As the environment becomes more complex we are seeing a movement away from application “stovepipes” towards a decomposition of applications, so that they can be recombined to meet emerging needs more flexibly.The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition

Institutional Repositories Greatest Value…

“Institutional repositories may better serve to disseminate the so-called “grey literature”: documents such as pamphlets, bulletins, visual conference presentations, and other materials that are typically ignored by traditional publishers.”

Davis and Connolly (March/April 2007) D-Lib Magazine Vol 13 (No ¾)

How Sweet It Isn’t

• Commercial crop supporting 40-50 million mostly small disadvantaged farmers

• Tropical species beset with serious fungal and insect pests – a number of which can completely wipe out a seasonal harvest

• Multiple databases on different platforms with limited international agreement on standards

For Chocolate Lovers…

• Annual global production 3 million tons

• Annual increase in demand – 3%

• Percentage of cocoa coming from West Africa – 70%

• Anti-oxidants and other natural components are anti-inflammatory and may promote cardiac health

Since Last Year…• Visioning Sessions held in 2006:

– Leadership Council Meeting -- January– United States Agriculture Information

Network – October

• Community Briefings held in 2006:– NAREEE Advisory Board – March– 1890’s Library Deans and Directors – April – Agriculture Network Information Center –

April– American Distance Education Consortium –

May– Special Libraries Association – June– American Libraries Association – June

• Launches in 2007:– AgSpace– NDLA Design Concept

In Draft

Mission

Goals

Roadmap

Taking the NDLA from Planning to Action

• 1890’s Agricultural Deans and Directors met with the Library Deans and Directors – April 2007– An Agriculture Dean … said he

could see how supporting the libraries would in turn support the research and teaching mission

– First time for these groups to meet together

Linda Eells

Putting the Pieces Together

• Technology• Collections• Partnerships

Will You Help?