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The University of Idaho Board of Regents established the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Idaho in 1892 following the passage of the federal Hatch Act (1887), which allowed the creation of agricultural experiment stations at state land-grant colleges. In addition to stimulating agricultural research, the act required the publishing of bulletins or reports of progress on station research and allocated $15,000 per year for conducting investigations and experiments and printing and distributing the results.

The University of Idaho College of Agriculture began establishing an Extension program in southern Idaho in 1910. In 1914, the federal Smith-Lever Act authorized cooperative extension work in agriculture and home economics between the state land-grant institutions and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Extension's role was to diffuse practical research-based information to people not attending college through instruction and practical demonstrations. Over the years, the Extension's mandate grew to include gardening, natural resources, youth development, and community development.

Starting the mid-1990s, experiment station and Extension publications were published on the Internet in PDF format as well as in print. By 2010, the vast majority of Extension and experiment station publications were available only online, for free access by all. You can locate more recent Extension Publications here: Extension Publications.

A Digital Collection of over 2,000 Extension Publications can be found here: Agricultural Experiment and UI Extension Publications.