The Library has most of the report series issued by the U.S Forest Service, but they can be a little tricky to find. Most are in "series" (e.g. PNW-GTR-456 = Pacific Northwest General Technical Report Number 456). Each series title has been given a call number as shown below. If the item you need is from before 1990, it will be in the compact shelving on the first floor.
The Forest Service has Research Stations throughout the U.S. The full names of these stations and their abbreviations are listed at the end of this bulletin. Some earlier Stations are now closed, or have merged with other stations. Links to the U. S. Forest Service Research Units sites on the WWW are shown at the end of this guide.
Each station issues its own reports series. These reports are received through the Library's Government Documents Office and have a Superintendent of Documents "SuDocs" number beginning A13 with initials for the Research Station (PNW, RMRS, SRS, etc.) and for the report series (GTR for General Technical Reports, etc.). In order to have the bulk of this material housed with the Forestry collection, The Library has given each of these series a Library of Congress call number beginning with "SD."
For each of these report series, call numbers on volumes published prior to 1985 indicate "COMPACT." This refers to a LOCATION in The Valley Library. All volumes labeled "COMPACT" are publicly accessible in the moveable/compact shelving on the north side of the First Floor.
Some of these reports are only available to the Library on microfiche and are found in the microforms area on the third floor of the Library using the call numbers given below. With the advent of the WWW as a medium for distribution, many series are now available electronically as PDF files. In OSU Libraries' Online Catalog, you will find electronic titles noted as "Internet Resources" with a link to "connect to this file online."
If you are given a title, without a series number, try searching it directly in OSU Libraries' Online Catalog, for more recent material you will likely find the call number directly. However, if this fails and you know the series and number, select journals and do a keyword search on the abbreviation for the station (SRS, etc.). This will give you a list of the series published by that station. If in doubt, ask for help at the Reference Desk (TEL: 541-737-7295)
Today the Forest Service is making available many of its published research findings via the Web. This includes not only the various series listed below, but also articles in journals (if the authors are employed by the Forest Service). When you are looking for a reference and you suspect the author is a Forest Service employee, you can see if it is available free online by searching their database, TreeSearch at: http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/. The database also includes online access to many publications we have in print in the series listed below. However, the file sizes may be large and locating the paper copy may be more cost effective. The Library holds a far bigger retrospective collection of these publications than is available online at present.
Listed below are the current websites for research stations within the USFS. Research stations which have closed or merged with other regions are annotated with " * " and no link is provided.
Yes, and the library has many of the reports produced by these agencies. If not called a forest service, they may be a "ministry" of department within a ministry in the government. You can get an overview from the FAO Forestry "Country Profiles." Publications from these organization will generally be "findable" in the catalog using a SUBJECT search for:
Forests and Forestry--[insert country name]-[periodicals]