The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library - Cornell University
The Albert R. Mann Library is one of the Cornell University Library system's 19 unit libraries and is focused on supporting the instruction, research, and extension programs of the University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Human Ecology. It is an important resource for Cornell researchers and students, as well as for the broader research community in these fields.
The Challenge
Many developing countries would benefit greatly from better access to state-of-the-art agricultural research, which can inform policy and improve farming practices and productivity. Unfortunately, most libraries in these countries do not have the resources to own a wide range of agricultural publications and subscribe to the numerous important agricultural journals. Beginning in 1996, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mann Library partnered with Contegra to create a cost-effective mechanism for making these resources available around the globe.
The Contegra Solution
Because Internet access is still limited in many developing nations, Contegra developed The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL), a comprehensive set of 426 compact disks that contain articles (including graphics and illustrations) from 140 prestigious agricultural and life science magazines published between 1993 and 2003.
Updated annually by Contegra, TEEAL boasts a user-friendly interface that enables researchers and others to navigate quickly through 2.2 million pages of indexed content. TEEAL users can view an abstract of every article and jump directly to the full-text document. In addition, a full-text search engine allows focused search by publication, author, title, date, ISSN number, journal title or year, and keyword(s). Each article can also be viewed and printed in its original published format.
Today, TEEAL is supported by library subscriptions to the CD set, which are available to 111 of the world's lowest income countries in which improved food production remains a major challenge.
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Our long-term partnership with Contegra Systems has been terrific. They are as responsive in their ongoing support and services as they were with our initial product launch.