Mississippi State University has gained access to cutting-edge research and information in agricultural science because of a partnership with the National Agriculture Library.
With the new agreement, the library has linked MSU with Digital Desktop, also known as DigiTop.
The service, available for use in Mitchell Memorial Library, provides full-text electronic access to resources in the agricultural sciences, including reference and article delivery services containing information about food, agriculture and natural resources in the United States.
The agriculture library built DigiTop under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service to provide resources to the USDA’s staff, according to its Web site.
MSU library administrator Stephen Cunetto said DigiTop gives MSU access to digital resources that were previously unavailable. These resources include Web browsers and journals by licensing electronic databases to the university.
MSU is the only university nationwide that is in partnership with the NAL for this type of research technology. The project tests for the system’s costs and effectiveness, with the goal of potentially expanding to other universities.
“Certainly the correlation will bring national recognition because NAL picked MSU to work with this technology,” Cunetto said.
Dean of Libraries Frances Coleman and Ned Browning, print media leader for the Office of Agriculture Communication, said they think the information will benefit researchers at the university.
“This project will strengthen the collection we already have by adding additional resources in support of research and teaching here at MSU and beyond,” Coleman said.
“The most effect it will have is on the researchers because it will provide greater access to the NAL, which catalogs a lot of information not traditionally found in conventional libraries,” Browning said. “Graduate students, being research-oriented, will have great use for it,” Browning added.
The MSU Libraries were previously using the agriculture library’s Agricultural Online Access, or AGRICOLA, for obtaining bibliographic records of materials acquired by the agriculture library and other institutions in agricultural and related sciences. AGRICOLA has been expanded for DigiTop to include greater access to electronic databases and journals.
DigiTop is also accessible to MSU’s extensions offices located throughout the state, allowing agricultural researchers to have access to current journals and newspapers.
For more information on the National Agricultural Library, visit http://www.nal.usda.gov.