The major US governmental agricultural library, and one of the largest in the World. Includes both documents and images. Operates a general reference service, and 10 subject specific Centres offering (over the Internet) access to digital data, images, databases, resource guides, etc. Operates a document delivery service.

The Centers are: Agricultural Trade and Marketing Information Center (ATMIC; Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC); Animal Welfare Information Centre (AWIC); Biotechnology Information Centre (BIC); Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC); Plant Genome Data and Information Center (PGDIC); Rural Information Center (RIC) and RIC Health Service (RICHS); Technology Transfer Information Center (TTIC); Water Quality Information Center (WQIC). See separate entries for these Centers.

Information products include:

(a) WWW/gopher site: information on NAL services

(b) ISIS: offers two databases, the NAL's online public catalog (holdings of NAL, U.S. National Arboretum Library , five USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS ) Regional Research Center Libraries) and the journal article citation database. Accessible by telnet

(c) Agricola: catalogue of the library, with added bibliographical entries from other sources: see separate entry

(d) AgNIC distributed network for agriculture-related information (see separate entry)