Technology and the availability of resources both financial and human are the driving forces recreating services and products of the U.S. National Agricultural Library (NAL). These forces present new opportunities to gather, organize and disseminate information for the agricultural information community. That community is dispersed with wide-ranging needs, and as such, the information profession which serves it has an even greater need to develop strategic alliances. One such alliance, AgNIC, is a distributed system providing information and services; an important model and potential partner to this Roundtable. AgNIC and other initiatives exist and thrive thanks to the Internet. NAL is working to provide ready access to important agricultural information by linking Internet available resources to AGRICOLA indexing records while continuing to create new resources like the dietary supplements database. While NAL is working to meet today's information needs we must also plan for the needs of tomorrow by preserving our historical record including electronic publications. Accessing all of these resources is highly dependent upon trained professionals, especially librarians and technical information specialists. Organizational change to support an efficient and effective staff is a high priority for the coming year. Despite great technological advances our most important resources continue to be people and our ability to form and maintain partnerships around the world.

1. A description of the agricultural library and information infrastructure in the United States of America.

The National Agricultural Library (NAL) serves as the chief agricultural information resource of the United States. As one of the largest agricultural libraries in the world, NAL's mission, simply stated, is to ensure and enhance access to agricultural information for a better quality of life. NAL has a dual responsibility, as a national library and as the library of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In recent years Congress has broadened NAL's responsibilities to include providing leadership in developing and operating a comprehensive agricultural library and information network. NAL is the only library in the United States with the mandate to carry out these national and international responsibilities for the agricultural community.

In defining what NAL is, I think it is fair to say that it is the sum of its parts:

The Collection:

• a collection of 3.3 million items
• 3,300+ publication exchange agreements worldwide
• 23,000 journal titles in 70 languages
• 160,000+ annual requests for documents, 80 percent received electronically and 34 percent delivered the same way.

The Database:

• the AGRICOLA database with 3.5 million bibliographic records
• available on the Internet since September 1998 (http://www.nal.usda.gov/ag98)

The Organization:

• 40,000+ annual reference transactions
• a staff of 180 librarians, technical information and computer specialists, and support staff
• specialized information centers in six key areas: food and nutrition, animal welfare, technology transfer, rural revitalization and health, sustainable agriculture, and water quality
• www.nal.usda.gov which received over 11.5 million hits last year.

NAL has a major role in the national effort to keep information flowing to the American agricultural enterprise. The strength of NAL's programs is directly related to the strength of our national and international relationships. The library participates in local, national and international networks and collaborative activities which promote resource sharing, access to recorded knowledge and the advancement of scholarly communication. These relationships serve to reduce unnecessary duplication and promote greater access to agricultural information.

The U.S. agricultural information structure depends on NAL as the coordinator and primary resource for a nationwide network of state land-grant libraries. The land-grant system is a set of U.S. institutions of higher learning which receives federal support for integrated programs of agricultural teaching, research and extension. As part of this state/federal partnership, there is close collaboration between USDA agencies and land-grant universities. NAL and land-grant university libraries have a long history of cooperation in such areas as: cooperative cataloging and indexing; microfilming and preservation; collection development; document delivery; and the evaluation of new technologies. As a team NAL and land-grant libraries work together to improve access to and preservation of the nation's agricultural knowledge. Internationally, NAL provides leadership to ensure U.S. participation in global networking efforts through cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), CAB International and others.

2. Major changes and activities at the National Agricultural Library since Roundtable VI.

AGRICOLA. In September 1998, NAL made available its AGRICOLA database for free over the Internet. The database may be found at www.nal.usda.gov/ag98 with records going back to 1979. Last year almost 86,000 indexing and cataloging records were added to the database, a 9% increase over the previous year. More than 37% of the indexing records added to the database contained abstracts. A milestone was reached in NAL's effort to convert to an electronic library with the completion of a five-year project to create machine-readable and searchable records for all monographs in the collection. When the loading of these records to AGRICOLA is completed this year, information for an additional 188,000 resources will be accessible to remote users. NAL is focusing its energies on the identification and cataloging of electronic resources, especially Internet resources, and creating live links between catalog entries and their online resources. Currently there are nearly 1,500 electronic resources represented in AGRICOLA with active links that take the user directly to the online documents and databases.

Renovations. NAL began a major renovation of its reading room and staff areas last fall. The library facility is being renovated because of a severe shortage of storage space for the collection, a need for more a customer-friendly user area, and a desire to meet the new millennium with the most modern facilities possible. Construction has caused NAL to relocate and close areas of the building. The entire renovation will take approximately three years to complete however we hope to have the new Reading Room ready in time for National Library Week celebrations in April of 2000. The renovation project also allowed NAL to create a better environment for the long-term preservation of the collection through enhanced temperature, humidity, and air quality controls.

Digital Preservation. In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Chief Information Officer, NAL is taking a lead role in developing a strategy to ensure preservation of USDA publications in electronic form. This is necessary in order to prevent the irrevocable loss of critical agricultural information. A report entitled Framework for the Preservation and Permanent Access to USDA Digital Publications (http://preserve.nal.usda.gov:8300/npp/npp.htm) was produced during an NAL-hosted stakeholders workshop and was accepted by the CIO for implementation with USDA. As a result, a USDA mission-wide steering committee has been established that will consider such issues as life-cycle management, technical requirements, and user access and retrieval.

USDA History Collection. Responsibility for the USDA History Collection was transferred to NAL three years ago. The USDA History Collection Web Site (http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collect/) was launched last month and greatly expands access to this collection which is considered the best single source of information for the history of USDA. Most of the materials relate to the activities of the Department during the 20th century but there are also records that chronicle the founding of USDA in 1862, covering the history of agriculture in the Americas, and a small but significant collection of agricultural manuscripts dating from the 18th century.

Dietary Supplements Database. IBIDS, the International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements database on the Internet, was released by NAL and the National Institutes of Health in January 1999. The site (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/IBIDS/) contains international scientific literature on dietary supplements from 1986 to the present. The U.S. Congress directed that the site be developed as a result of increasing demands for dietary supplements and the confusing claims being made about their effectiveness.

Food Safety Research Information Office. A Food Safety Research Information Office (FSRIO) was established at NAL in January as part of the Food and Nutrition Information Center. The Congress has charged the Office with providing to the research community and the general public information on publicly funded, and to the extent possible, privately funded food safety research initiatives. A Web-site is currently being built that will provide links to government-sponsored research, as a first step. The Office will serve to prevent unintended duplication of research and assist the Federal government and private research to assess food safety research needs and priorities.

Licensing Electronic Journals. NAL has added a significant core of current scientific literature to its Electronic Media Center. Over 170 scientific journals published by Academic Press are available at NAL with Web-based access to the International Digital Electronic Access Library (IDEAL). Through the license agreement, NAL is able to offer local electronic access to the IDEAL package starting with 1996 issues.

3. Main problems of the stabilization and development of human resources in the U.S. agricultural information system.

As we are all aware, two realities of the digital age are the increasing amount of information available and the cost of that information. Inextricably linked to these realities is the future role of the librarian in the digital age. The tension among these realities are felt at NAL as I am sure they are at your institutions. It is an unfortunate fact that NAL's budget has been relatively flat since the early nineties. This has meant that the library has had to reduce programs, materials and staff. The collection has suffered because of the loss of buying power due to inflation and exchange rates. Thousands of serials have been canceled and monographic purchases cut in half.

The ongoing budget crisis has resulted in a 15 % reduction in staff. The downsizing comes at a time when digital libraries need skilled digital librarians more than ever. The subject of core competencies needed by librarians to succeed in the digital age is a widely discussed and debated topic within agriculture and virtually every other discipline. Will there be librarians? If so, what will they do? One need only reflect on the characterization of the Internet as a library with all the books all on floor to know that finding information seamlessly in cyberspace is far from perfect. It is encouraging to note that the predictions of the demise of librarians is being replaced with a growing reaffirmation of the necessity and value of librarians to organize knowledge within the digital world. The tools we use to organize knowledge are what is changing and where some of our greatest challenges lie. At NAL, training remains a top priority despite a very tight budget. We want every librarian's toolkit to include expertise in Web and database development in addition to a subject specialization as we feel this combination will be the key to our long term viability.

Within the Public Services Division (PSD) a Reference Reinvention initiative is underway. PSD is creating a new reference service model that will leverage the use of the World Wide Web in order to transition from an emphasis on mediated services to Web-based self-service. This shift to building content on the Web will help us reach a broader audience and manage demand from our customers while continuing to emphasize customer service. PSD librarians and technical information specialists have researched new models and roles for library staff to include in our emerging model, developed statistical profiles from existing customer data, identified gaps, analyzed workload, and recommended several work flow analyses. Critical success factors necessary for staff and system development have been identified that will be essential to conducting a Web-based reference operation. When fully implemented our vision of Agricultural Information that is More Accessible to More People Through Technology should enable us to make strategic changes in our services such that we can more realistically align services with future resources.

4. Status of international cooperation of the countries taking part in the Roundtable; The fulfilling of the Joint Program of Cooperation--Past, Present and Future.

A review of the areas identified for development in the Joint Program of Cooperation first signed in 1991 and renewed at each consecutive Roundtable shows notable progress. Some of our accomplishments include: training fellowships; technology workshops; a surplus publications programs; equipment upgrades; and an overall strengthening of relationships through much improved communications. In fact, of late, many of our communications and much of our business have become routine. This I believe is a true indicator of success. In preparing for this Roundtable I asked NAL staff from throughout the library to provide some summaries of current activities with our Roundtable participant countries. I was pleased to find out that a profile of our current communications and working relationships shows the following:

Publications Exchange Agreements

• 560 agreements within Roundtable participant countries
• 302 agreements are currently active
• Periodic reviews of agreements would be useful

Document Delivery

• 1,000+ requests for NAL documents from Roundtable participant countries
• NAL borrowed 500 titles from Aglinet members, including Roundtable members
• 7 Roundtable libraries are designated Aglinet centers

Web Statistics - Analysis of hits on NAL Web site by Roundtable participant countries

• Average 1 percent of all hits or 5,300 hits/month
• Top five heaviest users are: Poland; Russian Federation; Hungary; Croatia; and Czech Republic

So dear colleagues, the question that begs to be asked is what does the future hold for our Roundtable initiative. Some discussion began at the 6th Roundtable in Arizona and I imagine more will take place as this week progresses. We at NAL would like to suggest an area for future cooperation. That is participation in the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC). AgNIC is a virtual information center (http://www.agnic.org) established by NAL in collaboration with land-grant universities and several government agencies and organizations. AgNIC provides Internet access to important sources of information on agriculture. This electronic information center functions as a distributed discipline-based network. AgNIC participants, or partners offer subject specific Web-sites, providing quality resources and online reference services. AgNIC provides several value-added services that include:

• AgDB. A directory of agriculture-related databases, data sets, and information systems. It describes and links to more than 1,000 information resources on the Internet in thirteen subject areas. Metadata records describing the linked information are provided.
• AgCAL. Provides information about and links to agricultural conferences of scientific significance. AgCAL links to more 1,500 international meetings.
• AgExp. Compilation of more than 50 directories of experts in agriculture-related disciplines available on the Internet.
• DirAgIR. The Directories of Agriculture-related Internet Information Resources points to subject and geographic directories of information resources on the Internet.
• Online Reference Service. One of AgNIC's more unique features, reference services are offered online through AgNIC-distributed Centers of Excellence. Each Center maintains a Web site on a specific subject based on the institution's or organization's strengths. Participants create list of Frequently Asked Questions and Frequently Used Resources in their subject specialty in addition to other resources. Presently, over 22 institutions provide coverage in over 40 subject areas.

As a voluntary alliance, AgNIC members take responsibility for small segments of agricultural information. The collective AgNIC WWW resource will benefit all members in ways that they can not achieve on the own, and justifies the local costs of participation.

It is interesting to note that an analysis of Roundtable participant country hits on the AgNIC Web site show the following activity:

• Average of 1.31 % of all hits or 4,500 hits/month
• Top 5 heaviest users are Russian Federation; Poland; Hungary; Croatia; and Ukraine.

Contributions from Roundtable member countries in one or more aspects of AgNIC would greatly enrich this site for the world agricultural information community. Clearly, today's information technology provides us with exciting opportunities to add value for library users through more effective evaluation of sources. I hope AgNIC can be considered a platform for doing this. I will look forward to hearing your views, comments and suggestions.