1. Nan Hyland Joy Paulson Albert R. Mann Library Cornell University Historic Census of Agriculture

2. USDA Economics Statistics and Market Information System Partnership between USDA Economic Agencies and Cornell’s Mann Library since 1993 Currently Has Reports and Datasets from AMS, ERS, FAS, NASS and WAOB More than 3000 titles (reports and datasets) Past and Present Scanning Projects NASS historical reports ERS historical reports WAOB historical reports (complete) Census of Agriculture (1987, 1982, 1978, 1974, 1969, 1964,1959, 1954, 1945, 1935 and 1925)

3. Census of Agriculture Taken Every Five Years Covers Land Use, Ownership, Operator Characteristics, Production Practices, Income and Expenditures Uniform Agricultural Data for Every County in the United States Filled Out and Mailed in or Completed Online Individual Information is Obscured for Privacy “A farm is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the Census year.”

4. History of the Census of Agriculture First taken in 1840 as part of the decennial census Part of the decennial census through 1950. These are available at http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/Historical_Publicati ons/index.asp 1925, 1935, 1945 taken separately 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007 were tabulated electronically and are available online at http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/ Responsibility for the Census of Agriculture transferred to NASS in 1997

5. Issues Numerical Data – OCR is Difficult Needed New Interface (didn’t fit into the existing system as neatly as the historical reports) Browsing Capability for 1987 and 1982 is Complete Searching Will be Added (OCR on the table headers) Census of Agriculture (1987, 1982, 1978, 1974, 1969, 1964,1959, 1954, 1945, 1935 and 1925)

6. Digitization Process Outsourcing the scanning Text scanned as 600 dpi bitonal (I bit) images Grey-scale pages scanned at 300 dpi (8 bit) images Color pages scanned as 300 dpi (24 bit) images

7. Post-scanning work and Progress to Date PDFs made for each table PDFs are OCR’d to allow searching 1987, 1982, 1978, and 1974 have been scanned PDF creation complete for 1987 and 1982. It’s underway for 1978 1969 is currently being scanned

8. Prototype 1987 and 1982 http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/homepage.do