Like most of agriculture, the pork industry's biggest information challenge is too much information, too disorganized, and too hard to find. It simply takes too much time to find good, solid, useful information.
Our goal is to change information frustration into an “information epiphany” (to paraphrase Joseph Campbell) by creating one--stop information shopping for anyone participating in or interested in the pork industry. Our promise is that you will find whatever you're looking for at this site. If it's not there, we will find it, get it, and put it online.
You'll find five sections available now, with more to come
PorkNet's key driver is the SmartPork Reference Library. It's our proprietary knowledgebase, about 30,000 articles, on pork production, industry analysis, market analysis, management, etc.
We've included over 1,200 sources to build this database, and we update it weekly.
Sources include:
Subscribers can search and download abstracts and summaries. Subscribers can also e--mail us and ask us to do the search for them, or to send them full--text copies of articles they are interested in. If we haven't posted an article's summary, subscribers can e--mail, fax or phone us and we will summarize the article, post it online, and send them summaries by e--mail, fax, or mail.
Within the SmartPork knowledgebase, we have an Author's Comments section and a Reader's Comments section. For each article in the knowledgebase, authors will be able to comment on what they published, why, what has changed since the original publication came out, and so on.
Also, for each article readers will be able to make comments on what they have read. There willbe one or a few authors' comments but, we hope, many reader comments. We will support your research process by providing hyperlinked references (for articles that have references) along with hyperlinked “related information” jumps to articles within the SmartPork Reference Library.
And we will even provide hyperlinks to articles that have referenced the one you're interested in -- a “referenced by” link. In our Discussion Forums, you can add questions or comments to any number of threaded discussion groups. We will archive all questions and answers.
The What's Coming area lists the major upcoming events for the worldwide pork industry. We've included trade shows, scientific meetings, producer meetings, international congresses and symposia, etc. We also list release dates for important reports (like the USDA reports) and deadlines (like public comment periods for proposed legislation). Along with the listing, you'll find contact information (persons, addresses, phone and fax numbers, e-mail addresses, and, if it exists, links to the event's website.
With thousands of hyperlinks to worldwide sites related to the pork industry, we have taken a very focused approach by categorizing them to make it easier to find exactly what you're looking for without having to jump all over the web. We link to resources within the pork industry and the food industry, online shopping, stock market resources for the food industry, companies and their investment analysis (including stock price charts), news sources, search engines, and more.
We also have the option of doing a Yahoo--type search within our web links to find just what you're looking for.
We are offering a 1--month free trial subscription. We want you to use PorkNet long enough to see whether it has enough value to you that it's worth the subscription price. We offer two subscription types. One is a month--by--month basis, for maximum flexibility. The other is an annual, for best price.
If you want to see additional features or functions, pass those requests on to me at tomstein@porknet.com.
Go to:
Contents, Animal Welfare Information Center Bulletin
Top of Document
The Animal Welfare Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
National Agricultural Library
10301 Baltimore Ave.
Beltsville, MD 20705-2351
Phone: (301) 504-6212
FAX: (301) 504-7125
E-mail: awic@nal.usda.gov
