Category: ACDC Newsletter

Creating Super Newsletters.

That’s the title of a new seven-module training curriculum designed to help Extension workers and others produce successful newsletters. This 242-page resource was published during 1997 by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension (U.S.), with Melanie Spencer as preparer. It is one of the most comprehensive and useful newsletter resources we have seen. The modules include:

Module 1:       Newsletter basics: what to do first
Module 2:       Creating newsletter copy
Module 3:       Laying out and designing a newsletter
Module 4:       Great graphics
Module 5:       Producing your newsletter
Module 6:       Marketing and distributing your newsletter
Module 7:       Evaluating your newsletter     

The printed resource is identified within our collection as Document #CO8818.

You can arrange to review or purchase the curriculum in ring binder or disk forms by contacting the Publications Office, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, at 207-581-3269. Preparer Melanie Spencer can be reached atmspencer@umce.umext.maine.edu.

---

Serving worldwide.

We are pleased that Internet users from 67 countries gathered information last year from this web site. During 1997, users from an average of 26 countries gathered information from the site each month. That is more than double the average number of countries from which searchers visited during the year earlier.

Wherever you live, please let us know if we can help you find information about communications related broadly to agriculture.

---

“Agricultural magazines are alive and well,”

Says a headline in the Winter 1998 issue of the ACTion Newsletter, published by the American Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow.

In the article Gregg Hillyer, president of the American Agricultural Editors’ Association, notes: “When radio first hit the airwaves, many proclaimed that farmers would tune out magazines. Then television came along and similar predictions were heard. Today, the Internet and electronic news services are the latest mediums to try to render farm magazines a relic of the past.

“But farm magazines have never been stronger,” he argues. “Nor has a career in agricultural communication held so much promise.” Why? Rapid changes in agricultural technology. Restructuring of agribusiness. A global marketplace. Ever-growing world population.

“In the environment, farmers rely even more on farm magazines to help them through the maze of uncertainty and change.”

Let us know if you would like to see this article and do not have local access to it.

---

New administrative home.

The Agricultural Communications Documentation Center recently became part of the Information Technology and Communication Services (ITCS) Unit of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences here at the University of Illinois. This is a natural partnership and we look forward to working together to serve you.

---

Welcome – and thanks.

Welcome to Paul Hixson of ITCS as new administrator of the Documentation Center. He replaces Bob Hays, agricultural communications faculty member who retires this year. Paul will add much to progress here. Thanks to Bob for excellent service to the Center, from its beginning in the early 1980s.

---

Different gauges.

“Did you get much rain last year?” a tourist asked a local farmer.
“Not much,” replied the farmer, “but my neighbor had a lot more rain than I had.”
“How could he?” inquired the astounded visitor.
“He has more land than I have.”

Best regards and good searching.

New link to rural media.

You will see a new listing this month on our page of links related to agricultural communications. It is the web site of the Rural Media Association of South Australia (RMASA), an association of rural journalists and others in the rural sector of South Australia who deliver information of interest or benefit to the rural community. You will find on the site current information about goals, activities and committees of the organization.

Please let us know if you are aware of other professional rural communicator groups with web sites not yet included in our page of related links.

---

How the public feels about the safety of food.

A survey report deposited recently in the Documentation Center sheds light on current public opinion about food safety. The document is: “Food safety survey revealing: study shows consumer acceptance of irradiation increasing,” Food Safety Digest, November/December 1997.

CMF&Z Public Relations conducted this survey among U.S. consumers and editors who cover food and food safety issues. Results suggest that consumers are becoming more concerned about the safety of food. The study also identifies food safety issues of greatest concern to consumers and shows sharp differences between consumers and editors on why food safety is becoming more important.

Let us know if you would like to see this report and do not have access to it, locally.

---

Fifth book published. 

Professor Bob Hays, agricultural communications faculty member and coordinator of the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center here at the University of Illinois, recently published his fifth book. It is entitled A Race at Bay: New York Times Editorials on “the Indian Problem,” 1860-1990 (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1997. 357 pp.)

Through analysis of editorials in the Times, Hays examines what the newspaper commonly referred to over a 40-year period as “the Indian Problem.” The paper published nearly a thousand editorials about Native Americans between 1860 and 1900. Hays analyzes how editors addressed major aspects of the subject: status of the Indian, national Indian policy, the chiefs, massacres, treaties, public opinion, role of the press and others.

---

Over the 40-year period,

Hays reports, Times editors found public apathy and ignorance on the topic, plus a prevailing public opinion quite different from their own. He observes that by 1900 the paper “had come full circle in its philosophy concerning the Native American as ward of the nation.” Early editorial concerns that often centered on “thieving, murdering Indians” had shifted over the 40 years toward broken promises, land-grabbing settlers, graft and incompetence in government services, unfair taxes, flawed public policies and other injustices to Native Americans.

“I hope the retelling adds something to our understanding of why things are the way they are,” Hays explains, in describing the intent of this book. “If we understand better how we got here, we may be better prepared to decide where we ought to go next.”

---

“The shoemaker’s children are going barefoot,”

Observes Mark Stober, an agricultural marketing communicator who works with Dudnyk Advertising and Public Relations. He is a former president of the American Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow.

Stober notes that communications in agriculture is changing rapidly, but he wonders if anyone is chronicling and analyzing the changes. His interest is more than academic in nature. He notes that, early in his career, he gained valuable perspective from studies of developments in rural media. The studies helped him understand the historic underpinnings of some of the communications organizations and changes that he has seen.

He wonders who are generating research to help today’s young agricultural communicators understand and respond to the many changes they see around them.

---

Make mine well done. 

Yes, it is true that some folks in midwestern America like their steaks cooked thoroughly. A sign above the kitchen door of one small-town restaurant in central Illinois reads: “When the smoke alarm goes off, it’s done.”

Best regards and good searching.

Greetings to you as we begin a new year.

Those of us who work in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center wish you the best and hope that we can help you locate information to strengthen your communications efforts during the year ahead.

---

Finding agricultural software marketers.

We extend special thanks to Warren Clark of Clark Consulting International, Kathy Gill of eNet Digest and Ron McMullin of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. They helped the Documentation Center provide information to a recent inquirer who was looking for lists of agricultural software suppliers.

---

“Show us your impact,” 

The public asks of organizations, with increasing intensity. We often hear this demand voiced in terms of “accountability,” “value-added” and “cost-effectiveness.” Throughout the public and private sectors, organizations are scrambling to demonstrate their value.

---

Why do we see so little research

About the economic value of agricultural information? Agricultural communications research often deals with “upstream” matters such as documentation of communications problems and descriptions of techniques used for communicating. Sometimes the research helps assess readership levels or other indicators of exposure to messages. Occasionally, studies measure knowledge gain, attitude change, intentions or other kinds of behavioral change associated with communications. Seldom do they address the economic impacts of such efforts, the “downstream” aspects that are basic indicators of effectiveness and value.

---

Gwil Evans of Oregon State University wonders

If agricultural college communicators’ lack of attention to accountability hasn’t been at least in part the consequence of a parallel lack of attention (until recently) by administrative leaders. “I think that may reflect some complacency growing out of the many years of stable or growing budgets. But it is a new era, and new thinking is called for.”

---

As noted in Issue 97-2 

Of “News and Announcements,” members of Cooperative Communications Association (CCA) are addressing this same matter. Through a research program, they plan to identify tools that cooperative communicators can use to measure how their efforts influence business success.

---

Please let us know

By e-note if you have thoughts about how communicators in agriculture can more effectively assess what they do, in terms of economic impact and value.

---

Twelve low-budget tools

For communicating the benefits of cooperative organizations to members were identified in the lead article of the January issue of Cooperative Communicators Association News. The author, Doug DiMento of Agri-Mark, Inc., briefly describes practical ways in which to use existing information systems (such as voice mail and fax systems) more fully and to “seek the help of others to tell your story.” Let us know if you’d like to see the article, or check with CCA.

---

A recent dissertation explores communications aspects of chemical risk.

The Documentation Center recently added a doctoral dissertation that examines farm operators’ perceptions of risk from agricultural chemical usage. The citation: Mark A. Tucker, “The influence of social-learning factors on farm operators’ perceptions of agricultural-chemical risk in the Ohio Darby Creek Hydrologic Unit.” The Ohio State University, 1995. Mark Tucker(mark_tucker@muccmail.missouri.edu) heads the teaching program in agricultural journalism at the University of Missouri.

---

Keeping on top of things.

Recently we noticed this little sign posted in the café of a west central Illinois town: “There’s not much to see in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it.” Have you seen any good signs lately? Let us know.

Best regards and good searching.

Thanks to Delmar Hatesohl,

Retired agricultural journalism faculty member, University of Missouri, for contributing additional documents to the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center this month. Some of these materials were prepared to help Extension professionals carry out effective meetings: planning meetings, helping speakers be effective and introducing speakers. One item produced for the MidAmerica International Agricultural Consortium (MIAC) explains how to be an effective consultant on international development projects. And one, entitled “Care and feeding of references,” is a guide for job-seekers.

---

Changes and challenges in rural communities

Are the main focus of about 30 documents that were contributed this month by Phillip J. Tichenor, communications faculty member at the University of Minnesota. These new additions, written by Professor Tichenor and his associates from the 1950s through the 1980s, emphasize development trends and issues in rural U.S. communities, including implications for rural families. Some documents report on studies of farmers’ attitudes toward government policies and land use. Others feature farmers’ media use and information sources, as well as farmers’ adoption patterns.

If you are interested in checking on these documents, let us know by e-mail reply. They aren’t yet searchable on the web database, but we can help you gain access to them if you want to see them.

---

Can anyone suggest a source

Of current lists of agricultural software distributors? If so, please let us know and we will pass the information along to an online inquirer. Thanks.

---

We are pleased that searchers from 29 countries used this web site 

During November 1997. Our goal for the Documentation Center is to help bring together, for easier access, the widely-scattered literature about agricultural communications in all parts of the world. Literature in this collection now features agricultural communications in more than 90 countries, but we have only begun to tap the potential.

---

You may have ideas and suggestions 

About how the Center can help gather and make available the agricultural communications literature from more countries. We would be pleased to learn of your needs and ideas. Some interesting partnerships might emerge.

---

Agricultural information in Hungary. 

We were pleased this month to help a searcher locate journal articles about agricultural information systems and services in Hungary. The searcher found citations for these articles through an online search of our collection, then located the articles in a local library.

When local libraries can’t help you in such situations, please let us know. We can provide photocopies of desired documents (as copyright policies permit) or otherwise help you gain access to them.

---

Rural communications problem:

High school agriculture teacher to student: “What do you know about nitrates?”
Student: “Well, they’re cheaper than day rates.”

Do you know of other humorous “rural communications problems?” If so, let us know. We’d enjoy hearing from you and passing them along.

About 100 agricultural communications documents

Are being added each month to the Documentation Center database. However, we are facing some delay in getting those citations incorporated into the web database for online searching. Thanks for bearing with us as we work to overcome this bottleneck. If your search doesn’t reveal the documents that you want, please let us know by e-note and we will help you look.

---

A study of uses and potentials for the internet

In rural Australia is among our recent additions, thanks to the generosity of Warwick Easdown of the Gatton College, University of Queensland. He compiled it during the latter half of 1996. It is published as “The role of the internet in rural communities,” Occasional Paper Volume 4, Number 2, 1997, Department of Natural and Rural Systems Management. 60 pages. (Documentation Center Number C08717)

The conclusion notes that, in Australia, rural communities have been minor players in internet use so far. “It is…important that rural communities be supported to develop local uses for the internet and that rural service organizations and educational institutions take the initiative to supplement existing services or develop new services using the internet. Participation in this medium by rural communities will then help to shape its evolution in Australia” at a stage when the internet still offers a wide range of futures.

---

Is the NPAC literature being lost?

Robert Jarnagin, a veteran agricultural communicator, raised that concern recently. He was referring to materials produced through the National Project in Agricultural Communications, a widely-respected professional education program in the U.S. during the 1950s.

Jarnagin noted that “..while I greatly appreciate the effectiveness of our new technologies, I am so afraid that our present workforce become so enamored of machines that they forget the people involved in communication. Interpersonal communication is a human behavior, and its effects must be measured in terms of behavioral change.”

We are pleased to report that NPAC educational materials are an important part of the Documentation Center collection. They include, for example, a full set of Agricom Newsletters (1953-57); AgriSearch reports about group process, learning, psychological barriers to communication, subliminal communication, legibility, use of color and other topics; teaching guides; and a benchmark review of professional training for agricultural journalism. Some of this material arrived recently and is being processed; you can locate some of it online by searching for “National Project in Agricultural Communications” under “title” or “author.”

---

Here’s a web site

For those interested in the study of the diffusion and adoption of innovations. It’s the site for a diffusion course taught by Everett M. Rogers at the University of New Mexico.

---

Call for proposals.

Cooperative Communications Association (CCA) is inviting proposals for research to be carried out early next year concerning the impact of cooperative communications on business success. You can see details of the RFP in the CCA web site. Look in the “Cooperative InterNetwork Press Releases” page.

Holiday greetings – and good searching.

Welcome

This news page, through which we will keep you posted on developments in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC) and in other matters of possible interest to agricultural communicators. In fact, we hope this page can become an interesting meeting place for agricultural communicators who work in various countries and various parts of the career field.

To that end, we invite your news, comments and questions about the literature of agricultural communications and, more broadly, about developments in this important professional field.

---

The online thesaurus offers easier, more-thorough searching.

A newly-added thesaurus is helping users of this collection find subject-matter terms more easily. It’s a comprehensive thesaurus (more than 1,000 terms), so you can find citations about many topics related to agricultural communications. If you decide you want to search by subject, simply enter “Begin the actual search” and click on the thesaurus hot button.

Remember that you can conduct cross-subject searches. For example, you can use our search engine to identify literature about “campaign planning” related to “food safety” or “water quality.” If you get stumped in your search, let us know by e-note and we’ll help you find what you want.

---

Thanks to these professionals

Who have contributed literature to the Documentation Center during recent weeks: Francis C. Byrnes, Harold Guither, Dick Lee and Bill Ward. Together, they have added more than 100 excellent documents to the collection.

For example, documents from Frank Byrnes total more than 50 items that he wrote between 1954 and 1993. The documents, all of which involve communications related to agriculture, include journal articles, conference papers, reports, presentations and book chapters.

This is a valuable addition, especially as Frank has been a pioneering agricultural communicator throughout his career. First recipient of the Agricultural Communicators in Education (ACE) Award of Excellence in International Affairs (1986), he has specialized in communications related to agricultural development. He worked with communications programs of the International Rice Research Institute, International Center for Tropical Agriculture, International Agricultural Development Service and Winrock International, among other organizations. He also served as associate director of the National Project in Agricultural Communications (NPAC).

His literature, therefore, involves topics such as roles and strategies for communications in agricultural development, dilemmas of agricultural consultants abroad, scientific communication, communications training, the role of indigenous knowledge and grassroots participation, and operation of agricultural communication units.

---

A balanocarpus tree?

A web site identified as “agricultural communications” is apt to get some unusual questions. Maybe our most-unusual recent request came from someone who was searching for information about the balanocarpus tree. We referred this question to a forestry specialist.

---

When you see agricultural terms

(such as “cattle” or “crops”) in our thesaurus you can assume that the documents you find through your online search will relate to the communications and human aspects rather than to the technical aspects of those topics. Similarly, when you see communications terms (such as “media effectiveness” or “video”) you can assume that the documents you find will relate to their use in agricultural settings. Every document in this collection contains two elements – human communications, as related broadly to agriculture. That’s why the collection is special.

---

Need help in your search?

Let us know. Often, we can help you get on the track you want to follow. And if your search is complex – your time limited – we can conduct a custom search for you on a modest, cost-recovery basis. The Center staff includes folks who are familiar with literature about agricultural communications and who are skilled in information searching. For example, Center Coordinator Jianhua Dong is an experienced librarian and a doctoral candidate in library and information sciences. Professors Bob Hays and Jim Evans are long-time faculty members in agricultural communications at the University of Illinois.

Have you any agricultural communications documents to recommend or contribute? If so, let us know and we will follow up with you.

Thanks – and good searching.