United States National Agricultural Library

U.S. National Agricultural Library
39°1′23″N 76°55′17.5″W / 39.02306°N 76.921528°W / 39.02306; -76.921528
Location	Beltsville, Maryland
Type	National library
Established	1862; 162 years ago (1862)
Reference to legal mandate	Organic Act (May 15, 1862)[1]
Service area	Washington, D.C. metropolitan area
Branches	1 (Washington, D.C.)
Collection
Size	c. 4 million[2]
Other information
Budget	c. US$30 million (FY 2023)[3]
Director	Paul M. Wester Jr.[4]
Employees	215[2]
Parent organization	United States Department of Agriculture
Website	www.nal.usda.gov

The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located in Beltsville, Maryland, it is one of five national libraries of the United States (along with the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, the National Transportation Library, and the National Library of Education). It is also the coordinator for the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC), a national network of state land-grant institutions and coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field libraries.

NAL was established on May 15, 1862, by the signing of the Organic Act by Abraham Lincoln. It served as a departmental library until 1962, when the Secretary of Agriculture officially designated it as the National Agricultural Library. The first librarian, appointed in 1867, was Aaron B. Grosh, one of the founders of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry.