PUERTO RICO—The International Institute of Tropical Forestry, located in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a research institute dedicated to advancing and dispensing scientifically based knowledge that contributes to the preservation and management of forests, wildlife, and watersheds of the American tropics. The institute's library, established in 1939, specializes in tropical forestry and neotropical environments and has always been a fundamental part of the scientific process for the institute’s scientists and staff.

The library is focused on providing researchers and the public with diverse materials and services related to tropical forestry—many of which are specific to Puerto Rico—including publications from worldwide tropical environments.

The library is one of the three branches that comprise the National Forest Service Library. The other two branches are the main branch in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the Forest Products Laboratory Library in Madison, Wisconsin.

The institute’s library is a tropical research goldmine. It houses books, journals, theses, gray literature, maps, photographs, manuscripts and every publication produced by the institute since 1939. The library shelves hold thousands of physical materials whose bibliographic records are available through the national library catalog. This online service allows users to find resources held at all three branches.

All three library branches share thousands of resources through multiple databases like e-journals and e-books. For instance, anyone can access Treesearch, an open-access database with all the scientific contributions from Forest Service researchers nationwide. Browsing from the same page, people can access other research products such as datasets and interactive maps.

Forest Service employees can access the library's subscribed databases through the national library’s intranet site. One of those databases is Digitop, a service of the National Agricultural Library, which includes over 7,000 journals.

The institute’s library is the place to visit or email if you are looking for information about tropical forests and the neotropics.

Library staff are always ready to help with any information requests at iitf.library@usda.gov.

To learn more about the library, visit its website.