BEV BUTULA: New search engine PubAg beefs up agricultural research

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The National Agricultural Library recently released a new search engine called PubAg.

According to the website, PubAg “is a portal to USDA-authored and other highly relevant agricultural research. At launch it delivers over 40,000 full-text journal articles by USDA staff and citations to an additional 340,000 articles.” It further states that additional enhancements are being planned as we move through 2015.

There is no fee to search PubAg and subjects include food safety, food quality, natural resources, agricultural economic and policy issues, as well as other topics of potential interest to legal researchers. Searchers should note that the most recent results are listed first when executing the query.

PubAg also offers a helpful FAQs section that addresses a variety of search questions. Those familiar with Boolean searching may want to take advantage of the “advanced search” option.

Online users needing to search for agricultural information should also check out the NAL’s digital collections. A unique set of collections (both past and present) are available, ranging from documents on organic agriculture published prior to 1942 to reports on rural development, to fruit and vegetable market data. An interesting find for me was an article from 1952 on state pesticide laws.

Hat tip – Stanford Law School’s Legal Research Plus.