FAO publications and documents and their acquisition by libraries in the United States

This paper describes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in a thumb-nail sketch of the nature of FAO's publishing activities and its interrelations to other U.N. organizations. A differentiation in distribution is made between publications, defined as substantive in nature and of lasting reference value, and documents, defined as serving a number of purposes, sometimes substantive, but often of interest only to the issuing agency. The paper outlines the FAO distribution system for both publications and documents through the Land Grant Colleges and University System coupled with the National Agricultural Library and the Department of Agriculture field libraries. A description is provided of the Special Indices (both retrospective and current) produced by FAO as an aid to acquisition for organizations and individuals outside the normal distribution channels. Also included are instructions for ordering through UNIPUB, the FAO sales agent in the U.S., or from the FAO Documentation Center.