The Food Safety Information Center (FSIC) specializes in providing food safety information to educators, industry, researchers and the general public. Using technology, the FSIC staff develop solutions that disseminate information on a variety of food safety topics.

The center was established at the USDA’s National Agricultural Library (NAL) in 2003 to efficiently use library resources, develop stronger collaborations among the library’s food safety programs, and ultimately deliver the best possible services to the food safety community.

The center also includes the Food Safety Research Information Office (FSRIO) that focuses on providing information and reference services to the research community. Highlights of the program include:

• Research Projects Database – providing access to research from agencies from across the Federal government
• Fact sheets – analyzing research trends and issues on hot topics in food safety
• Resource Lists – linking to the top 100 web resources on the Internet in a topic

FSRIO was mandated by the United States in accordance with H.R. 2534 Agricultural Research, Extension and Education Reauthorization Act of 1997, SEC. 615. To learn more about FSRIO, visit its Web site.

The center is supported by the NAL and the University of Maryland Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. It also partners with other agencies and organizations to develop, maintain and deliver a variety of information products. Examples of recent work includes

• Dynamically creating standard operating principles (SOPs) for school food service personnel through a partnership with the National Food Service Management Institute (NFSMI)