This guest post was written by Julie Kelly and Louise Letnes.
Over the past few months, the papers that make up AgEcon Search have been added to RePEc. All papers are available in full text, and they include working papers, conference papers and articles from smaller journals.
AgEcon Search includes a wide range of topics in applied economics, including agricultural, development, energy, environmental, and resource economics. Over 170 groups from 20+ countries contribute their work. As of early 2009, 27 journals are included.
The journals that are included in AgEcon Search are mostly small press journals with limited circulation, and for many it is the only electronic access that is available. Some have volumes back to the 1940s, and a number obtained small grants for the digitizing of older materials. A few have one or two year embargoes on the newest issues, but most do not. Recently, several of the journals have dropped their embargoes.
AgEcon Search began in 1994 as a local solution for the applied and agricultural economics working papers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin. It is housed at the University of Minnesota, and co-sponsored by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).
The involvement of the large professional associations has been critical to the success of AgEcon Search. Economists presenting Contributed Papers at the annual AAEA meeting must submit their full papers to AgEcon Search prior to the meeting, or they will be dropped from the program. The European Association of Agricultural Economists and the International Association of Agricultural Economists have adopted similar procedures.
Two librarians, Louise Letnes and Julie Kelly, serve as coordinators of AgEcon Search. They work at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Applied Economics and the University Libraries, respectively. Among their duties, they attend agricultural and applied economics conferences to promote AgEcon Search and recruit new material.
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