The United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) provides a forum for issues in agricultural information, guides U.S. national information policy for agriculture, and advises the National Agricultural Library.
History The original network was based on a recommendation from the 1982 Interagency Panel of the National Agricultural Library (NAL). It was officially launched in 1988. It consisted of a network of public and private agricultural libraries and information centers coordinated by the NAL. Originally, the Executive Council was composed of representatives from land grant and other institutions, and the director of NAL, in an ex-officio capacity. By 1995, the Executive Committee moved from an organization-based network to an individual-based organization, transferring the responsibility for the operations to individuals. At the 1995 USAIN Conference held in Lexington, Kentucky, a slate of grassroots-working agricultural information professionals emerged as the new Executive Council.
Activities
Conferences USAIN holds biennial conferences on current themes in agricultural information. This includes collection management and preservation, data management and scholarly communication, curriculum and instruction, outreach and marketing, and national information policy.
1990 – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Inaugural meeting 1991 – University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Electronic Information in the Agricultural Sciences 1993 – Auburn University, Auburn Alabama; Rural Information at the Crossroads: Issues and Opportunities 1995 – University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky; Cultivating New Ground in Electronic Information: Use of the Information Highway to Support Agriculture. 1997 – University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, joint conference with the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists(IAALD); The Information Frontier: Linking People and Resources in a Changing World 1999 – Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, From Production to Consumption: Agricultural Information for All 2001 – North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina; Extending Our Reach: Redefining and Promoting Agricultural Information Through Partnerships 2003 – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois; Agricultural Information for the New Millennium: New Crops, Biotechnology, and Saving the Past 2005 – University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, joint conference with the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) World Congress; The Globalization of Information: Agriculture at the Crossroads 2006 – Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Delivering Information for the New Sciences 2008 – Ohio State University, Wooster, Ohio; Tradition in Transition: Information Fueling the Future of Agbiosciences 2010 – Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; Agriculture Without Borders: Creating Knowledge and Partnerships Across Disciplines and Across the World 2012 – University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Soil, Water, Food and Energy: Agriculture in an Era of Global Climate Change 2014 – University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont; Sustainable Agriculture: Stewardship of our Information Ecosystem 2016 – University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; Interdisciplinary Agriculture: Meeting Tomorrow's Global Challenges 2018 – Washington State University, Pullman, Washington; Consuming Information: Agriculture at the Crossroads of Sustainability 2020 – Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; Smart Agriculture in the Era of Climate Change (Virtual due to COVID-19) 2022 – University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR; Supporting Agriculture: Food, Fiber, and Family (Virtual due to COVID-19). 2024 – Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; Growing Together, Branching Out. Also joint conference held with Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) 2026 – Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA; Extending Our Reach 2.0: Honoring our past, celebrating the present, & planning the future.
National Preservation Program USAIN's preservation plan for agricultural literature, one of the first discipline-based plans, obtained several rounds of funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and resulted in 29 state projects, USAIN recently partnered with Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC) and the Center for Research Libraries on Project Ceres, which awards funding for “small projects that preserve print materials essential to the study of the history and economics of agriculture and make those materials accessible through digitization.”
Presidents 1988: Nancy Eaton, 1st President, Iowa State University 1989–90: John Beecher, North Dakota State University 1990–92: Julia Peterson, Cargill 1992–93: Richard Rohrer, University of Minnesota 1993–94: Martha Alexander, University of Missouri 1994–95: Cynthia Via 1995–98: Antoinette Powell, University of Kentucky 1998–99: Rita Fisher, Washington State University 1999–00: Barbara Hutchinson, University of Arizona 2000–01: Diana Farmer, Kansas State University 2001–02: Amy Paster, Pennsylvania State University 2002–03: Dana W. R. Boden, University of Nebraska–Lincoln 2003–04: Jodee Kawasaki, Montana State University 2004–05: Pat Wilson, University of Kentucky 2005–06: Lutishoor Salisbury, University of Arkansas 2006–07: Heather K. Moberly, Oklahoma State University 2007–08: Norma Kobzina, University of California, Berkeley 2008–09: Kathleen (Katie) Newman, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign 2009–10: Sheila Merrigan, University of Arizona 2010–11: Allison Level, Colorado State University 2011–12: Mary Ochs, Cornell University 2012–13: Eileen Herring, University of Hawaii at Manoa 2013–14: Connie Britton, Ohio State University 2014–15: Valrie I. Minson, University of Florida 2015–16: Philip Herold, University of Minnesota 2016–17: Sarah C. Williams, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign 2017–18: Leslie Delserone, University of Nebraska–Lincoln 2018–19: Kristen Mastel, University of Minnesota 2019–20: Claudine Jenda, Auburn University 2020–21: Jessica Page, Ohio State University 2021–22: Megan Kocher, University of Minnesota 2022–23: Suzanne Stapleton, University of Florida 2023–24: Kiri DeBose, Virginia Tech 2024–25: Melody Royster, University of Florida 2025–26: Randa Lopez Morgan, Louisiana State University 2026–27: Livia Olsen, Kansas State University
References
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