There is no single place to obtain publications produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Many publications produced in recent years are available for free on the World Wide Web (WWW), some are available in microfiche or on CD-ROM, and many are only available in print.

Search AGRICOLA, the National Agricultural Library's online catalog and article citation database. Many publications contained in AGRICOLA are available online in full-text. If a document is available online you will see a hypertext link in the Electronic Resource field of the publications record. Select this link to view the document. (Note: You can limit your search in AGRICOLA to electronic resources only. See AGRICOLA's Search Limit Help Page for details.)

Search for the publication title in a general search engine, such as AltaVista or Google, or a more focused one, such as Science.gov

Browse NAL's Indexes to USDA Serial Publications. These indexes cover the following USDA serials: Agricultural Economic Reports; Agriculture Handbooks; Agriculture Information Bulletins; Farmer's Bulletins; Foreign Agricultural Economic Reports; Home & Garden Bulletins; Marketing Research Reports; Miscellaneous Publications; Technical Bulletins. Those titles shown as a hypertext link are available online.

Search or browse the web pages of the various USDA agencies.

Search the Government Printing Office's (GPO) Catalog of U.S. Government Publications or the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). These catalogs contain records for print and electronic publications created by or for the Federal government. If a publication is available online a link to the full-text of the publication is provided.

Purchase the publication from either the Government Printing Office (GPO) or the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). (Note: Not all USDA publications are available from GPO or NTIS. The NTIS catalog goes back to 1990. For publications older than 1990 you can contact NTIS to verify availability.)

Borrow the item, or obtain a photocopy of it, from a library, including USDA's National Agricultural Library. Contact a local library, such as a public library, for assistance in processing your request.

Visit a Federal Depository Library (FDL). Many USDA publications are available for free public use in the many FDLs located throughout the United States. To determine if a FDL near you owns the publication you are interested in, search the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, locate your item in the results list, select the "Locate Libraries" link, and type in one or more state abbreviations to locate the FDL's that own the publication. (Note: The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications goes back to 1994. For publications older than this you may try searching the online catalog of your FDL or contact the FDL for assistance. To locate website and contact information for your FDL refer to the GPO FDL locator page.)

Purchase a copy from a commercial bookseller. Try among others Abebooks, Alibris, and Fetchbook.info. This may be particularly useful for older, out-of-print USDA material.

Document Delivery Services Branch National Agricultural Library, rm. 300 Beltsville, MD 20705 (v) 301-504-6503   (f) 301-504-7593 contact us Updated 22-Sept-2004