Appendix B: Online Libraries of Historical Agricultural Texts and Images

The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA). Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University.
http://chla.library.cornell.edu/
A “core electronic collection of agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science, forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science.” Documents may be viewed via image, PDF and/or text files.

The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA). Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University.
http://chla.library.cornell.edu/
A “core electronic collection of agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science, forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science.” Documents may be viewed via image, PDF and/or text files.

Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/index.php
“The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital form... Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections.” Browse by topic (“Agriculture”) or search by keyword, author, title, year, etc.

Journey to Forever Online Library. Keith Addison, Journey to Forever.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html
“This is a free library, open to anybody who wants to learn about sustainable development, environment and related areas.” Fair use copyright restrictions apply to out-of-print materials not in the public domain. Most documents are in HTML file format.

Library of Congress, American Memory, The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920. U.S. Library of Congress.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/conshome.html
“Documents the historical formation and cultural foundations of the movement to conserve and protect America’s natural heritage, through books, pamphlets, government documents, manuscripts, prints, photographs, and motion picture footage drawn from the collections of the Library of Congress. The collection consists of 62 books and pamphlets, 140 Federal statutes and Congressional resolutions, 34 additional legislative documents, excerpts from the Congressional Globe and the Congressional Record, 360 Presidential proclamations, 170 prints and photographs, 2 historic manuscripts, and 2 motion pictures.” Documents available in HTML format or as images.

Making of America (MoA). University of Michigan/Cornell University.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moagrp/
A “digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.” Dozens of titles refer to agricultural and farming topics. Documents may be viewed via image, PDF and/or text files.

National Agricultural Library Digital Repository (NALDR). National Agricultural Library, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
http://naldr.nal.usda.gov/
The NALDR “provides access to publications either digitized by NAL or through NAL’s partnerships with other institutions. The majority of the publications available in the NALDR were published by the USDA. Examples include the Agriculture Information Bulletin, the Agricultural Economic Report, and the Yearbook of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The NALDR utilizes ZyLAB’s ZyIMAGE system, which includes optical character recognition processing to convert images into searchable text and a Web interface to display and print/download documents.” Accessing individual documents entails linking to the ZyLAB executable file/database.

Organic Roots: Organic Agriculture Information Access. Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, National Agricultural Library.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/n/nal/
An electronic collection of historical United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) publications related to organic agriculture. In this collection, there are almost 200 documents published before 1942 (before synthetic chemicals became widely used) that contain state-of-the-art information and data that is still very pertinent for today’s agriculture. Another 300 documents will be added to this site in 2007. Documents may be viewed via image and/or text files.

Publication Archive. Michigan State University Extension.
http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/modp1/masterp1.html
Michigan Extension Publications; primarily from the late 1920s and 1930s are available in PDF. Search or browse by keyword.

Publications of the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station--1888 to 2006. Agricultural Experiment Station, Kansas State University.
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/historicpublications/
Reports and bulletins in various Kansas Experiment Station series are available in PDF. Browse by series and title. Files are also available on a set of four CD-ROMs, Harvest of Knowledge from Production Services, Kansas State University, 24 Umberger Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506-3402.

Soil and Health Library. Steve Solomon, Tasmania, Australia.
http://www.soilandhealth.org/
The Soil and Health Library has four major sections including Radical Agriculture: “The nutritional qualities of food and consequently the health of the animals and humans eating that food are determined by soil fertility. This section’s interest is far wider than organic gardening and farming; other health-determined approaches to food-raising are also included.” This Library is a “free library;” however, users are required to sign an Australian copyright clearance form and are requested to become Library members before certain documents not in the public domain may be downloaded. Either HTML or PDF files are offered.

Ye Olde Forage Library. West Virginia University, Extension Service.
http://www.caf.wvu.edu/~forage/library/
Contains “classic” works on forage management primarily from West Virginia Extension and Experiment Stations and from U.S. Department of Agriculture sources. Most documents are PDF; browse by topic and title.