PRESERVING THE HISTORY OF U. S. AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE
AN N.E.H. FUNDED GRANT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
The United States Agriculture Information Network (also known as USAIN) is an organization for information professionals that provides a forum for discussion of agricultural issues, takes a leadership role in the formation of a national information policy as related to agriculture, makes recommendations to the National Agricultural Library on agricultural information matters, and promotes cooperation and communication among its members. One significant portion of the organization has dedicated itself to preserving historical documents relating to agriculture and rural life in the fifty states. With coordination provided by the Cornell University Library system, USAIN applied for and received two multi-year grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities . Funds from these grants have been used to identify, gather, catalog and microfilm literally thousands of important historical documents from 15 different states. A new grant application is being forwarded to NEH in July of 2000 in hopes of obtaining funding to continue and expand the project.
The state of Florida, with the University of Florida Library System providing coordination, has participated in the USAIN preservation initiative from the earliest stages. During Phase One (mid-1996 to mid-1998), staff members from the Marston Science Library and Special Collection Department worked together with scholars from across the state to compile a ranked database of extant, important historical documents published in Florida prior to 1945. These documents included monographs, periodicals, serials, pamphlets and theses and dissertations. This list, broken out by categories and publication date, was used as the foundation for Phase Two of the project.
Early in Phase Two (mid-1998 to late 2000), students and staff from the Reprographics Unit of the Preservation Department began to gather the documents identified in Phase One. Once a sufficient number of documents had been gathered, they were taken to Resource Services for cataloging and record upgrades to AACR2. By November 1999, actual filming began. Once filming is completed, positive copies of the film will be housed here at the University of Florida, while a negative copy will be stored at the National Agriculture Library.
Note: A web page for the project was posted in the spring of 2001 at http://usain.mannlib.cornell.edu:1700/ .
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