The Agriculture Network Information Collaborative (AgNIC): Building on the Past, Looking to the Future

Abstract:The Agriculture Network Information Collaborative (AgNIC) began in 1995 as the Agriculture Network Information Center, a group of four academic libraries and the National Agricultural Library (NAL), with the goal of improving access to reliable agricultural information. One aspect of involvement during the early years was to develop unique subject sites that contained or linked to reliable, curated information on a particular agricultural topic. As the world of online information grew, the focus of AgNIC shifted. In 2013 AgNIC changed the "C" from Center to Collaborative, highlighting a substantive change for the group that had grown to fifty-three members. It moved the partner-members' vision of AgNIC from a series of subject silos, each staffed by librarians who built and maintained them, into a group with a much wider range of goals and interests. This reimagined collaborative explores and acts on agriculture information trends of mutual interest and international importance, including discovery, access, and preservation. Current activities include digitizing and preserving historical agricultural literature as part of Project Ceres, promoting NAL's PubAg portal, and enhancing HathiTrust by systematically requesting the release of state agricultural documents. Moving forward, this long-term partnership provides an avenue for collaboration between the libraries and NAL and opportunities for professional development.