3. A National Preservation Program


South Carolina State University; and Antoinette Powell, Director, Agriculture Library, University of
Kentucky, and president of the USAIN Executive Council.


 3.3 PRESERVING STATE AND LOCAL AGRICULTURE AND
 RURAL LIFE LITERATURE


A 1991 USAIN survey of the status of and need for preservation of agricultural literature revealed that
USAIN members assign highest preservation priority among the published parts of the record to
materials on local agriculture, agricultural society transactions, and state level publications. The National
Preservation Program calls for each state to preserve its own state and local level publications in a
nationally coordinated project.

In light of the priority placed on this literature and the existence of a model methodology with which to
proceed on this part of the plan, the the USAIN National Preservation Program Steering Committee
selected this component to implement next. They invited land grant university libraries to send a
representative to a meeting at the Midwinter 1995 meeting of the American Library Association to
discuss their interest in participating in the development of a cooperative, national project to preserve state
and local literature of agriculture modeled on the pilot project for New York State literature conducted
by Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University. In addition to significantly advancing the national plan,
the project would give the USAIN community another experience in implementing a cooperative project-
-experience that will be needed to implement the rest of the national plan. Interest in the project was
substantial.

Preservation consultant Carolyn Clark Morrow, formerly the Preservation Librarian at Harvard University,
was hired by USAIN in spring 1995 to develop the project plan and a proposal for funding in
cooperation with nine land grant university libraries. That proposal, Phase 1 of the proposed Phase 2
project, was funded and work commenced in the nine states in July 1996. The current Phase 2 proposal,
extending the work to include six additional states, was also prepared by Ms. Morrow, in conjunction with
the ten participating states and the project administration.

The national preservation program for agricultural literature described above establishes a national
framework to preserve the history of agriculture and rural life in the United States. The project described
in this proposal is an important piece of that plan. Its purpose is to cooperatively preserve and improve
access to a critical mass of state and local publications in a diverse cross-section of states using the proven
methodology originally developed at Cornell University for New York State's literature. (See Appendix
C for an article describing the project.) The nine participating states in Phase 1 were selected on the
basis of geographic spread, existence of a substantial preservation capability within the land grant library,
willingness to contribute institutional resources and to undertake systematic identification and evaluation
of the literature, willingness to commit collection development as well as preservation staff to the project,
and ability to undertake cooperation with other libraries in the state as necessary. The same criteria were
used in selecting the six new states included in Phase 2. Section 5 provides a profile of the preservation
capabilities and the project staff for each participating state in Phase 2.

At the completion of the proposed project, fifteen states across the country will have combined their
efforts to make a significant contribution to preservation in an important area documenting American
social, cultural, and economic history including the history of farming as a technology and business; the
documentation of rural life and communities; the integration of immigrants into American rural
institutions and communities; and the impact of farming on the visual landscape and on' ecosystems.
Section 6 provides an overview of the relevant literature documenting agriculture/rural life for each state
in Phase 2.