Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 08:14:14 -0400
From: "Constance J. Britton" <britton.4@OSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Agricultural Experiment Station Publications (Donna Sue Yanney)

Donna,

My library houses the ag experiment station publications for the state
of Ohio.  We also have an extensive collection of ag experiment
station publications from the other states.  You're right that these
collections have been underutilized because of the limited cataloging
and indexing that has been available to make them accessible.  The
University of Illinois completed a project a few years ago to catalog
and analyze the major series of most of the ag experiment stations in
the country and entered them in OCLC and Agricola.  This has been a
terrific boon to the bibliographic control of these items and has increased
their use.

Most of these publications from other states are received as part of
a cooperative exchange agreement which exists among the ag experiment
stations to exchange publications.  However, we will send our publications
to just about anyone who asks for them.  The mailing list and distribution
is handled in a department outside the library.

We keep all of the publications forever.  Not only is our collection for
research
use, it is also the historical record of the agricultural experiment station.
The collection is given an overall classification number, but the internal
arrangement is by state, series name, number.  In the past we have not
separately cataloged or classified individual items.  The National Agricultural
Library has been trying to establish cooperative cataloging agreements with
each state to catalog these items and we have agreed to do it for Ohio.  NAL
also wants to receive copies so that they can be included in AGRICOLA.

As far as circulating these items, we don't have any restrictions on that,
but I tend to evaluate it on a case by case basis.  In the case of our own
patrons,
we let them borrow anything; on interlibrary loan, we would probably
photocopy anything that is a reasonable length.  Since these publications
are not copyrighted, this is not a problem.  Part of the problem with the
older materials is that many, many publications may be bound into a single
volume. If someone requests a copy of, or asks
to borrow an Ohio publication, I check to see if we have any surplus
copies and will give them that before we loan.  Unless you are wanting
to retain these documents as an archive, I believe that loaning these items is
appropriate; after all, you're going to all the trouble of making them
accessible through your opac.  I may change my tune when we
enter ours in the online catalog!

Hope this helps.

Connie Britton
Librarian
Ohio Agricultural Research & Development Center
The Ohio State University
britton.4@osu.edu
At 04:52 PM 7/31/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 14:36:13 CST6CDT
>From: Donna Sue Yanney <dyanney@COLEMAN.PVAM.EDU>
>Subject: Agricultural Experiment Station Publications
>
>Good morning everyone!  I want some input from others.  My library is
>just starting a cataloging and analyzing project with our Agricultural
>Experiment Station collection.  This material has not been well advertized
>in the past, and, well, its really never been used.  Now that we are putting
>information in our opac we are anticipating demand for the collection.  My
>administrator is concerned that if we let items circulate, since many items
>are pamphlet or leaflet size, they will be easily lost.  My lackadaisical
>opinion is to wait and see if there is a problem, and if we find one, to deal
>with it.
>I am curious how other libraries have dealt with their Agricultural Experiment
>Station reports and the like.   Are they housed separately? What is your
>retention policy?   Are unbound items allowed to circulate?  Has that been a
>problem?
>Any insight will be appreciated.
>I'm not even real clear how this stuff is received.  Is it considered a
>gift/exchange type deal or more like a depository arrangement?  Or is it all
>just free for the asking for libraries?  Or does that depend on the state of
>publication?
>
>Donna Sue Yanney
>Assistant Periodicals Librarian
>Prairie View A&M University
>donna-yanney@tamu.edu
>Phone: (409) 857-2756 FAX: (409) 857-2755
>
>