The following information is an overview of information relevant to the Agricultral Technology Program found in the Hartfield Library at Henderson Community College.  This information is not intended to be a complete list of such material, but rather is a sampling of some titles that will be helpful and easily found in the Hartfield Library.

“American farmers, ranchers, and agricultural managers direct the activities of one of the world’s largest and most productive agricultural sectors.  They produce enough food and fiber to meet the needs of the United States and produce a surplus for export.

“Responsibilities of farmers and ranchers range from caring for livestock, to operating machinery, to maintain equipment and facilities.  They keep records for management and tax purposes, service machinery, maintain buildings, and grow vegetables and raise animals. 

Agricultural Managers manage the day-to-day activities of one or more farms, ranches, nurseries, timber tracts, greenhouses, and other agricultural establishments for farmers, absentee landowners, or corporations.  Their duties and responsibilities vary widely, but are concentrated on the business aspects of running a farm.  In some cases, managers may establish output goals; determine financial constraints; monitor production and marketing; hire, assign, and supervise workers; determine crop transportation and storage requirements; and oversee maintenance of the property and equipment.”(Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-07 ed., pages 36-37)

To find information useful for classes in this program, you may look in several places.  Our library's online catalog is called Voyager.  Using Voyager, you can do a basic search by typing in key words, such as "farming" or “harvesting” or “mowing machines.”  Voyager will show you all the books and audiovisual materials available on the selected topic.  You will find that many Library of Congress call numbers on these subjects begin with the letter “HD” or “S”  If you wanted to browse the shelves in the reference collection or in the circulating collection located on the second floor, both the “HD” and the "S" sections would be a good places to look.  You may also look in the online databases of periodical articles, the hard copy periodicals, the audiovisual collection, or Internet Web sites.  Each of these sources of information is explained below.

If you have questions or need assistance in finding additional materials, please see a librarian at the reference desk or contact the reference desk at 270-831-9767.  Email assistance is available at kevin.reid@kctcs.edu.

 
FINDING BOOKS
To find books in either the reference or circulating collections, use Voyager.  When searching Voyager, please remember to limit your searches to Henderson Community College; otherwise the search will find books held in any of the KCTCS libraries.  More thorough instructions on the use of Voyager are available in the tri-fold brochure titled “Using Voyager.”  This brochure is available at the front of the library.  Instructions for using Voyager are also available through the Blackboard software in the “Information Literacy Training” eCommunity.  For more information on this, ask a member of the library staff for assistance.

Subject Headings are key words or phrases used in Voyager to tell you what a book is about.  The most efficient and productive searches are those that use Subject Headings.  Some of the Subject Headings that are particularly useful for students in the Agricultural Technology Program are:

Agricultural Biotechnology

Agriculture – Statistics

Agricultural Chemicals

Agricultural Conservation

Agricultural Diversification

Agricultural Ecology

Agricultural Economics

Agricultural Wastes

Crop Rotation

Cultivators

Drainage

Farm Corporations

Farm Equipment

Farm Tractors

Farmers

Farms

Fertilizers

Fungicides

Harvesting

Mowing Machines

Pesticides

Spraying Equipment

Tillage

Reference Books
Reference materials are materials that are created to give you general information about a topic.  After you read the information in a reference book, you can search the library for more detailed and extensive information.  Hopefully, you will find some good ideas about useful subject headings or key words that are relevant to your topic by looking through the reference books.  When you are ready to search for more information about your topic, you can use the library's online catalog, Voyager.  Below is a list of titles of some reference books that you might find helpful.  Because these are reference books, they cannot be checked out; instead they are to be used in the library.

1.  The Merck Veterinary Manual, REF SF 745 .M4 2005

2.  International Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds, REF SF 291 .H37

3.  Every Manager’s Desk Reference, Ref HD 38.15 .E94 2002

4.  Kentucky Business Directory, REF HF 5065 .K4 K46

5.  Tractors,  RESERVE

6.  Hydraulics, RESERVE

Books That Can Be Checked Out (Circulating Books)

Circulating books are books that can be checked out of the library.  The circulating collection is located on the second floor of the library.  Anyone with a valid library card may check out these books.  Below are some titles that may be of interest to students in the Agricultural TechnClinical Laboratory Technician Program.

1.  Managing Price Risk in Ag Commodity Markets, HD 1437 .P87

2.  Invisible Farmers: Women in Agricultural Production, S 441 .S25

3.  Fuels, lubricants, coolants, and filters, TJ 789 .R84

4.  Managing Risk Through Crop Insurance, HG 9968 .E38 2000

5.  Belts and Chains, S 675.5 .B48

6.   Electrical Systems, TK 4055 .E43

Electronic Books

Many of the library's newest books supporting the Agricultural Technology program are available electronically through the NetLibrary collection which is accessed through the Voyager online catalog. NetLibrary provides a collection of over 29,000 full-text books which can be read online. To access these books, simply enter a search in Voyager, and scan the resulting titles.  If an e-book is available, the phrase, "[electronic resource]" will appear after the title.  Click on the title to read any of the electronic books.  You can check the books out for up to four hours.  Additional instructions for accessing electronic books are available at the reference desk.  For instructions on how to access and use these electronic books, use the tri-fold brochure titled, “Using NetLibrary.” Some Agricultural Technology titles include:

Reengaging in Agricultural Water Management

Sustainable Land Management

Pesticide Detox

Farmers, Scientists, and Plant Breeding

Agricultural Biotechnology

Careers in Farming, Agriculture, and Agribusiness

Good Growing: Why Organic Farming Works

Food and Everyday Life on Kentucky Family Farms, 1920-1950

Coping with Risk in Agriculture

PERIODICAL ARTICLES

Students generally find articles taken from magazines and journals to be particularly useful sources of current information.  To help students, the Hartfield Library subscribes to a wide variety of periodicals in both hard copy and electronic formats.  The articles available electronically are found on a number of databases accessible through the library's web page.  For instructions on how to access articles from the specific databases, use the tri-fold brochures available in the front of the library (e.g. "How to Use InfoTrac.")

Printed Periodicals
The following periodical titles are available in the hardcopy format on the library's first floor and are of value to the students of the Agricultural Technology Program.

1.    Agricultural Research

2.  Farm Journal

3.   Progressive Farmer

4.   Successful Farming 

Online Databases
Each of these databases contains hundreds of full-text articles as they were published in various national magazines and journals.  To see which periodicals are available full-text in each database, select that database, go to the message "Title List" and click on it to review the list (in the ProQuest databases, click on “Publication Search”).  If you want to read an article from a specific periodical after searching a database, be sure to specify that title during your search.

Please note that each database offers help screens that explain how the search engine of that database operates.  These help screens also identify the advanced search options for students who want to fine-tune their searches.

EBSCO Databases

Health Source - Consumer Edition

AcademicSearch Premier

MasterFile Premier

BusinessSource Premier

NewspaperSource

Regional Business News

Agricola

 

Facts on File

World News Digest

 

InfoTrac

Academic OneFile

Expanded Academic ASAP

 

NewsBank

NewsFile

ScienceSource

 

ProQuest

ProQuest Career and Technical Education

Alt-Press Watch

ProQuest Newspapers

New York Times

             

First Search

GPO

WorldCat

AudioVisual Materials
Audio-visual materials can come in many forms.  Videos, DVD's, CD's, filmstrips, and slides are all audio-visual materials.  At the Hartfield Library, many of our audio-visual materials are DVDs and videos.  The audio-visual materials are located on the first floor, in room LB 102.  The titles below may be of interest to students in the Agricultural Technology Program.

Alternative Agriculture, AV (DVD) HD 1761 .A27 2005

Kentucky Hunter Education, AV SK 40 .K37

The Properties of Soil, AV S 592.3 .P76 2002

Being Your Own Boss, AV HD 8036 .B45

Internet Web Sites

Internet sites are becoming increasingly useful.   Many sites—especially those associated with professional organizations offer connections to information such as articles, bibliographies, and job search engines.  A few such useful web sites are listed below.  Please be aware that electronic addresses do change frequently.  If an address listed below becomes obsolete, use an Internet search engine like Yahoo or Google to find the new address for the organization.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/main.htm

Agricultural Research Service

ARS conducts research to develop and transfer solutions to agricultural problems of high national priority and provide information access and dissemination to: ensure high-quality, safe food, and other agricultural products; assess the nutritional needs of Americans; sustain a competitive agricultural economy; enhance the natural resource base and the environment; and provide economic opportunities for rural citizens, communities, and society as a whole.

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome

United States Department of Agriculture

http://www.fb.org

Farm Bureau

An independent, non-governmental, voluntary organization governed by and representing farm and ranch families united for the purpose of analyzing their problems and formulating action to achieve educational improvement, economic opportunity and social advancement and, thereby, to promote the national well-being. Farm Bureau is local, county, state, national and international in its scope and influence and is non-partisan, non-sectarian and non-secret in character. Farm Bureau calls itself the voice of agricultural producers at all levels.

http://www.precisionag.com/index.html

PrecisionAg

An independent global forum dedicated to the sharing of precision agriculture practices, ideas, research, products, services and success stories.

http://www.agwww.agriculture.com

AgricultureOnline

Created by the editors of Successful Farming magazine, this site features agricultural news, discussions, and other related information.

http://www.nfu.org

National Farmers Union

Mission statement: “to protect and enhance the economic well-being and quality of life for family farmers and ranchers and their rural communities. We believe that consumers and producers can work together to promote a quality domestic supply of safe food.”