06/24/91 12:16 O'3015047042


June 20, 1997 (Revised)


Dr. George F. Farr, Jr.
Director of the Division of Preservation and Access
National Endowment for the Humanities, Room 802
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20506

Dear Dr. Farr:

I am writing this letter to register the strong support of the National Agricultural Library (NAL)
for the proposal Preserving the History of United States Agriculture and Rural Life Phase II:
State and Local Literature being submitted by Cornell University on behalf of the United States
Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) and in cooperation with ten land-grant university
libraries. Funding of this grant proposal would represent an important step forward in a nationally
coordinated, systematic plan to preserve the literature of agriculture.

As background, the National Agricultural Library is the coordinator and primary resource for a
nationwide network of libraries located at state land-grant universities and U.S. Department of
Agriculture field libraries. In its national role, NAL is involved in numerous cooperative projects
with federal, state, and other organizations. Collaborative projects in indexing, cataloging,
microfilming, collection development, document delivery, technology utilization and transfer serve
to share resources and expertise, reduce duplication and promote greater access to agricultural
information.

The National Agricultural Library has been a long-standing advocate of a national preservation
plan for agricultural literature. The Library is the major repository for federal publications related
to agriculture, but has unfortunately not been able to achieve the necessary level of resources to
implement a preservation program encompassing the full range of agricultural literature.
Nevertheless, preservation remains a top priority for NAL. Despite funding obstacles, the Library
has pressed on over the years and, in our opinion, has made a credible effort in providing
leadership to keep the preservation issue in the forefront of the agricultural community, to
promote partnerships in the preservation effort and to help coordinate and fund several
preservation studies and proposals.

NAL has undertaken several important preservation initiatives in the past including: a self-study to
assess its situation and determine its needs; cooperative microfilming projects with state land-
grant university libraries in which several million pages of agricultural, forestry, and State
extension publications were captured; and microfilming of Federal documents and various special
collections through non-profit and commercial micropublishers. In addition NAL, in cooperation
with 46 land-grant university libraries, successfully completed an evaluation project employing
digital scanning of library materials which is serving as valuable experience for national


DIRECTOR NAL


.. MANN LIBRARY 0002