4136/ L/17'S .* 37(4) Wright, Demnas, mnd C(,'bulski among individual or cooperative projects. These projects may be structured around genre, period, region, subject, or some com- bination of these (Demas 1991) and may include reformatting to microform, preser- vation photocopy, or digital formats or con- serving material in its original format. - One major component of this national plan is Cornell's Core Historical Agricul- tural Literature Project, underway at A. R. Mann Library under the direction of Wal- lace C. Olsen (McDonald 1991; Wright and McDonald 1991), The aim of this pro- ject is to identify the most influential and historically significant U.S. titles in the ag- ricultural sciences in order to set preserva- tion priorities for this literature. The core literature methodology shifts the selection for preservation from review of titles held by a particular library to that of systematic evaluation of the historical literature of a discipline (Olsen 1991; Olsen and Ken- nedy-Olsen 1991). This analysis takes place prior to making treatment decisions for titles. Seven disciplines within agricul- ture (agricultural economics and rural sociology; animal science: agricultural en- gineering; crop protection and improve- ment; soil science; forestry; and home economics and food and nutrition) are bib- liographically analyzed using a combina- tion of citation analysis and critical review by senior scholars and scientists. Based on the scholarly rankings and bibliographic factors, each title Is assigned an overall score and classified as first, second, or third priority for preservation treatment. The resulting lists, representing a qualitatively selected core of the historical literature of each discipline, will serve as the basis for cooperatively preserving historic agricul- tural titles of national importance. Publications about agriculture or rural life in a specific state are excluded from the analyses conducted in the Core Historical Agricultural Literature Project. It is pro- posed that each state preserve its own rel- evant state-level publications. To serve as a model for the states, we have adapted the core literature methodology for the identi- fication and preservation of the historical core literature of New York State's agricul- tural and rural life. The literature compila- tion-and-evaluation process used in this project will be described. It is hoped that these methods can be utilized by other land. grant libraries or institutions interested in preserving the literature of their state's agri- cultural and rural history. Each state project would further contribute to the national, coordinated preservation plan. NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE PRESERVATION PROJECT A core literature strategy for preservation selection is being successfully applied in a project to identify and preserve the core historical literature of New York State's agriculture and rural life. This project is funded by a multiyear New York State Coordinated Preservation Project Grant. A.R. Mann Library, at Comell University, and the New York State Library are part- ners in the project. Sam Demas is Project Director, Dorothy Wright is Project Coordinator at A.R. Mann Library, and Jim Lane is Project Coordinator at the New York State Library. Walter Cybulski (formerly with the project) contributed to the bibliography. Our goal in this project is to identify and evaluate systematically the core historical literature of New York State agriculture and rural life in order to set preservation priorities for the literature as a whole, not just for the titles held in each of our library collections. To accomplish this goal, we had first to identify the universe of mate- rial. Utilizing a wide range of printed pub- lications, bibliographies, and electronic sources, a comprehensive bibliography of pre-1945 published works was compiled- the first such bibliography in this area of research consisting exclusively of New York State material. Next, a team of scholars knowledgeable about agricultural and New York State his- torical literature evaluated and rated the most significant materials from the biblio- graphy. Using a rating scheme devised by the Core Historical Agricultural Literature Project, reviewers assigned each title to a first-priority core list or to asecond-, third-, or fourth-priority list. While the review process in each project is similar, a major methodological difference between the New York State Project and the Core His- torical Agricultural Literature Project in- volves the way in which the reviewed bib- liographies are compiled. The Core Historical Agricultural Literature Project uses citation analysis to arrive at a list of titles for review, whereas the New York State Project sought to compile an exhaus- tive bibliography of the literature for review. Finally, both Corell and the New York State Library initiated reformatting of material from the core or first-priority list and second-priority lists. Titles on the sec- ond and third lists will be microfilmed as far as funding allows. A total of nearly 2,289 volumes will be reformatted to pre- servation quality microform over the four- year grant period, 1989-1993. Further- more, we now have a reliable index of the work that remains to be done to complete the task of preserving the entire corpus of agricultural literature of New York State. One important benefit of this work is that both participating institutions will have a complete set of positive microfilm service copies of all materials reformatted during the course of the project. This arrange- ment permits each library not only to pre- serve items in its collection but to strengthen its collection by adding micro- form copies of materials not previously held. Researchers will have access to the entire body of preserved material in both Ithaca and Albany. DEFINING THE SCOPE OF TIE LITERATURE The first step in the literature identifica- tion process was to define the scope of the literature to be analyzed. \e established specific subject parameters and criteria for inclusion and exclusion to ensure that the scope of the bibliography would be clearly understood by those compiling and evalu- ating it. Some broad areas of inclusion were publications with relevant subject matter published between 1820 and 1945, pub- lications by or about Comell and its role as a land-grant university, publications by or about the New York State College of For- estry and Environmental Science, relevant Comell and other university master's or doctoral theses, and New York State docu- ments. Some broad areas of exclusion were manuscript or archival materials, titles of individual numbers published in series or reprints of individual articles, almanacs, daily newspapers, maps and gazetteers, publications of entitles below the county level, New York State legislative docu- ments, U.S. Census or legal materials, county histories, and Colonial-era publica- tions, In addition, no attempt was made to be comprehensive In works of fiction about rural New York, In the genre of materials classified as "description and travel," or in the.pamphlet literature (i.e., publications of fewer than 50 pages). Broad subject parameters included technical agriculture, rural economy, and rural society specific to New York. The criteria for Inclusion or exclusion, subject parameters, and specific subject headings searched were modified over time as the bibliography progressed and we learned more about the literature. Initial efforts to be extremely comprehensive eventually led to a more focused approach in order to define a meaningful and manageable scope of literature, particularly for post- 1900 publications. Many subject areas touch on agricul- ture and rural life. Post-1900 literature in particular required frequent decisions re- garding relevance to the bibliography. Ex- amples of ambiguous areas in the literature include the Interrelationships (not always obvious) that exist between agriculture and areas such as transportation, business, industry, trade, law, government, food marketing and supply, land use, and labor. Titles in these areas that did not have dis- tinct relevance to the study of New York State agriculture were excluded from the bibliography. METHODS AND TOOLS FOR COMPILING THE BIBLIOGRAPHY Once the scope of the bibliography was determined, the compilation process in- volved an extensive review of both print and electronic sources. About half of the citations came from online sources and the Llil'S 37(41) Notes on Operations /437