NAL Database Reaches 4-Million-Record Milestone

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library has added the 4-millionth record to the AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access) database of citations to the agricultural literature. AGRICOLA is the largest bibliographic database for agriculture in the world and has been available for free public use via the World Wide Web since 1998.

The 4-millionth AGRICOLA record was the citation for "FEIS final environmental impact statement: Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Fuel Treatment," published by USDA's Forest Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Technical services librarians at the National Agricultural Library entered the citation into AGRICOLA on July 9.

AGRICOLA contains citations to books, audiovisual materials and serial publications as well as to journal articles, book chapters, reports, electronic publications and reprints. Many AGRICOLA citations to electronic publications are directly linked to full-text articles, databases and image files.

Subjects included in AGRICOLA encompass all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics, extension and education, food and human nutrition, and earth and environmental sciences.

The National Agricultural Library is the world's largest and most accessible agricultural research library and is the principal resource in the United States for information about food, agriculture and natural resources. The library established AGRICOLA in 1970 as one of the principal means of carrying out its mission "to ensure and enhance access to agricultural information."

For more information about AGRICOLA or the National Agricultural Library and its programs and services, contact the library at (301) 504-5755 or agref@nal.usda.gov, or visit the NAL Web site at:

http://www.nal.usda.gov