Online bibliographic searching provides an alternative to the traditional manual literature search to access the already large and rapidly growing literature on agriculture. The advantages of online searching over manual searching are greater speed, increased accuracy, and the capability of searching for any combination of topics at once. The major databases devoted to agricultural topics include three produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural On-line Access (AGRICOLA), the Current Research Information Service (CRIS), and the Current Awareness Literature Service (CALS). The British counterpart to AGRICOLA, Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux (CAB), also receives major use. If a person desires information on an agricultural topic, any college or university which teaches agriculture can provide access to these databases at a nominal fee. With the advent of online searching, the difficulty of access which has curtailed the use of agricultural literature should be partly overcome. Two figures illustrating the principles of online searching are included. (JL)