This list includes all serials, printed and processed, received by the Library of the United States Department of Agriculture, on a current basis, as of July 1, 1957. Only dailies or administrative use are omitted. A serial is defined as a publication that is issued either regularly or irregularly over an unspecified period of time. For the purposes of this list, a serial was considered current if it had been received in the Library at any time since January 1954, unless it was known to have ceased.

Excerpts from and citations to reviews of more than 8,000 books each year, drawn from coverage of 109 publications. Book Review Digest provides citations to and excerpts of reviews of current juvenile and adult fiction and nonfiction in the English language. Reviews of the following types of books are excluded: government publications, textbooks, and technical books in the sciences and law. Reviews of books on science for the general reader, however, are included. The reviews originate in a group of selected periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and general science published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. - Publisher.