What Is AGRICOLA?

AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access) is a bibliographic database of citations to the agricultural literature created by the National Agricultural Library and its cooperators. Production of these records in electronic form began in 1970, but the database covers materials in all formats, including printed works from the 15th century. The records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics, extension and education, food and human nutrition, and earth and environmental sciences. Although AGRICOLA does not contain the materials, thousands of AGRICOLA records are linked to online full-text documents, with new links being added every day.
The AGRICOLA database is organized into two bibliographic data sets, which must be searched separately. One data set is the Online Public Access Catalog, known as "Books, etc.," that contains citations to books, audiovisual materials, serial publications, and other materials in the NAL collection. AGRICOLA also contains bibliographic records for items cataloged by other libraries and not held in NAL's collection. The other data set is the Journal Article Citation Index, known as "Articles, etc." It includes citations, many with abstracts, to journal articles (see List of Journals Indexed), book chapters, reports, and reprints, selected primarily from the materials cataloged in Books, etc. Both data sets are updated daily with newly cataloged and indexed materials.

 For more information about AGRICOLA, see AGRICOLA Technical Notes.