USDA Library Plant Sciences Card Catalog

Collection

Identifier: MS0440

Staff Only

Content Description

The Plant Sciences Card Catalog of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Library was developed over a half century, and consists of three divisions: author catalog, plant pathology catalog, and subject catalog. Work on this catalog ceased on July 18, 1952 because of lack of funds.

The plant science subject catalog (Botany Subject Index) is a card catalog with entries arranged alphabetically by subject and by scientific names, broken down into divisions and subdivisions of large subjects. Names of genera are arranged under the family, the family names appearing in their regular alphabetical place. Included also are references to literature on many subjects of interest to the botanist, such as textbooks arranged chronologically, voyages and travels, biographies, and geographical botany. It is world-wide in scope and contains references to botanical literature from earliest times as published books and in American and foreign serials of all kinds, journals, proceedings, bulletins, etc.

The Bibliography of Agriculture, begun in 1942, includes the types of references covered by the plant science catalog. After the Plant Sciences Card Catalog was no longer updated, users of the Plant Sciences Catalog would have made use of this resource, which was updated monthly.

Dates

Creation: 1893-1952

Conditions Governing Access

Contact Special Collections for access.

Organizational History

The USDA Library Plant Sciences Card Catalog, known locally as the "Botany Catalogue," was developed under the supervision of Frederick V. Coville in 1893 in an attempt to enlarge and coordinate collections of botanical literature in the libraries of Washington, D.C. The botany section of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Library catalog formed the nucleus of the plant sciences catalog. It started as an author list, chiefly used by the USDA library in cooperative book buying, but came to be generally consulted by workers in botanical lines. As the plant sciences catalog grew, it became necessary to enlarge its scope and develop a subject catalog along with the author list.