Scientists and researchers in the agricultural fields may have an easier time accessing scientific information from the federal government thanks to a new free search engine created by the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
PubAg, as the easy-to-use search engine is called, enables users to search and access over 40,000 scientific journal articles by USDA scientists between 1997 and 2014. Newer articles will be added as they are published.
With PubAg, which was designed with user friendliness in mind, USDA hopes to accommodate a wide variety of users, such as farmers, scientists, academicians, students and members of the general public. One not even need to register a username or password to access the database.
Subject areas covered within PubAg’s data base include nutrition, food safety, food quality, animal and crop production and protection, natural resources, sustainable agricultural systems, rural development, agricultural economic and policy issues, agricultural imports and exports, agricultural statistics, extramural research, and extension education.
Information and materials located through PubAg will be released in two phases. Phase I will allow searchers to access up to 340,000 peer-reviewed articles related to agriculture scientific findings between 2002 and 2012. NAL has taken 4 million citations from its database for the Phase I release.
Phase II is scheduled for 2015 and will feature the remainder of National Agricultural Library’s bibliographic records.
Source: GCN
