During the ETKN Exploratory Committee conference call on October 15, 2007, Amanda Wilson tasked Jennifer Boteler with putting into writing concrete examples of partnerships and collaborations Jennifer and Ken Winter articulated during the conference call. (3R80)
TRB Special Report 284 (p. 6) states: The functions and services of the regional and federal TKNs should include: (3R82)
- Identification of key information provider and user groups (3R83)
- Sharing of information and services (3R84)
- Coordination of library and other transportation collections, (3R85)
- Interlibrary loans (3R86)
- Sharing of catalogues through TLCat (3R87)
- Reference services (3R88)
- Professional capacity building for members (3R89)
Keeping these functions and services in mind, Jennifer brainstormed the following ideas. In the next section Ken Winter expounded on these ideas and in some instances provided some specificity, illustrating simple and accurate ways that ETKN accomplishments could be measured as outcomes. (3R8A)
Coordination of collections / shared collection development (3R8B)
Elsevier journal titles are very expensive. Let’s say, hypothetically, that we’d all like access to the Transportation Research series but we can’t afford individually to purchase all parts. So FHWA subscribes to Transportation Research Part A; VTRC subscribes to Transportation Research Part B; UNC subscribes to Transportation Research Part C; NJDOT subscribes to Transportation Research Part D; TNDOT subscribes to Transportation Research Part E; and NTL subscribes to Transportation Research Part F. This way we know that within our consortium there is complete coverage of this journal and if we need an article we can request it from a network member. (3R8C)
Scientific/technical textbooks can be very expensive. Most of us are probably pretty well covered in Civil Engineering (LC TA, especially TA 1001-1280 Transportation Engineering) and Highway Engineering (LC TE). As a consortium we could identify the seminal, essential books in each area of engineering, and then based on collection strengths or need, each library would choose or be assigned an engineering area and strive to purchase/collect books in that area. Again, this would produce better coverage within our network and books would be available for loan. (3R8D)
Resource sharing / interlibrary loan (3R8E)
Free, reciprocal resource sharing amongst ETKN members, think LSTR http://www.tfhrc.gov/library/lstr.htm (3R8F)
Shared catalog (3R8G)
We could create an OCLC subgroup like TLCat http://ntl.bts.gov/link.html (3R8H)
Not all libraries belong to OCLC and even for those that do serial holdings are not routinely included in the holdings notation. It could be very helpful to create a union list of serials. This could complement the work of cooperative collection development, too. (3R8I)
Sharing of expertise (3R8J)
Because the FHWA Research Library is under the same office that produces FHWA HRT (RD) reports they could be a point-of-contact for tracking down fugitive, unpublished, or web-only copies of FHWA reports. (3R8K)
Because the NTL has a digital collection and the director and staff has knowledge and experience with digitization and metadata standards, they can provide expertise and assistance to other libraries with digitizing collections or creating databases. (3R8L)
VTRC has recently converted from a database system to an integrated library system which involved trials with several vendors. VTRC Library staff can share their experiences and provide advice to other libraries on choosing an ILS, or in implementation of a system once chosen. (3R8M)
Mary Ellen Tucker is the UNC Highway Safety Research Center Librarian and would be a good resource for human factors and roadway engineering design questions. (3R8N)
Several member libraries have seasoned professional catalogers who can provide advice on original cataloging questions to those smaller libraries with no catalogers. (3R8O)
Long range (possibly relevant to MPOs) Provide technical guidance and training to transportation organizations with collections of information resources, whether traditional text (publications, reports, studies, manuals, codes) or records (contracts, plans, drawings, blueprints), maps, digital content, etc. on how to organize, index, and make the information accessible. Possibly help bring them into the transportation library community (hire a professional librarian, create a library, catalog materials into OCLC, etc.) (3R8P)
Reference services (3R8Q)
Provide back-up reference support to each other when our reference staff is out-of-the-office. (Currently the NTL does this for the FHWA Research Library.) (3R8R)
We could compose a list of subject expertise. If certain members have specialized knowledge of a certain subject area within or outside of transportation, they can be consulted for assistance. (3R8S)
Create online tutorials for searching transportation related databases. (3R8T)
Collaboratively create more reference resources, like the Directory of Transportation Libraries; Sources of Transportation Information; and Google Co-op State DOT search engine. Possibilities could be bibliography of engineering & transportation related dictionaries/glossaries, and listing of all published FHWA reports. (3R8U)
Consortium purchases (3R8V)
Negotiate for consortium pricing for online information resources, such as reference databases (Ovid SilverPlatter Transport and NTIS, Engineering Index, Dialog, etc.) and e-books (ENGnetBASE, netLibrary, etc.) (3R8W)
Long range (relevant to MPOs) Through NTL provide funding for newly developing libraries to join OCLC and with new subscription have free retrospective conversion and batchloading of materials into local system. (3R8X)
Contribute to the body of transportation knowledge (3R8Y)
Make a commitment to keep materials with few or no OCLC holders, even if it does not fall squarely within collection development policy. (3R8Z)
If withdrawing materials from collection, make effort to find home for unique materials, or return materials to the publishing institution instead of discarding. (3R90)
Make it a priority to catalog materials not in OCLC. For example, the FHWA Research Library has recently discovered a stack of Road Research Laboratory (UK) Research Notes, Laboratory Notes, and Supplementary Notes. Although many of these are indexed in ITRD, most are not in OCLC nor are they available from the publisher, TRL Information Centre. If the FHWA Research Library catalogs these publications into OCLC, it makes them accessible to the rest of the transportation community. (3R91)
Long range (relevant to MPOs): As outlined by Ruth Letson, MPOs create and retain Long Range Plans, Transportation Improvement Plans (TIPs) and other major studies. These are not consistently collected, organized, and accessible. ETKN libraries could either be designated to receive and catalog the documents, or ETKN librarians could work with MPO staff in identifying the appropriate public, state, or university library. (3R92)
Ken's Comments on Jennifer's Collaboration Examples (3R93)
Cataloging and Collection Development (3R94)
We could strive to have the highest percentage possible of these holdings in our regional library system. “Sources of Information in Transportation: Highways” 5th edition, 2001, online at: http://ntl.bts.gov/ref/biblio/highways/ (3R95)
In making a commitment to keep items with few holders, we could specify that if 3 libraries or less hold an item, we will offer it first to other libraries in our region, second to other transportation libraries nationwide. If there are no takers we could consider 3rd, offering it to our state library or the University in our state with the strongest UTC. (3R96)
We could make it a priority to catalog high-quality materials that not in OCLC. This is something we can track. (3R97)
AASHTO has started marketing e-only content to its members through their online bookstore, which offers 1 copy “free” to members. To date they have done this with about 75 items. Here’s an example: http://worldcat.org/oclc/76953331 (3R98)
Though AASHTO has been doing this for over a year, relatively few of these are in OCLC. We could make a concerted effort to catalog these to the benefit of both AASTO and the greater transportation community (even coordinating a cross-TKN effort to divide this work) (3R99)
Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (3R9A)
We could create a free, reciprocal ILL service for ETKN members. This should be a promoted as the country’s first “priority service” with 24 or 48 hour turnaround. (3R9B)
Scanning and Preservation Services (3R9C)
We could all pick 5-10 documents that are the intellectual property of our parent group, and which we think would warrant it, and scan them and contribute the scanned documents to NTL for deep archiving. These should be items in TRIS online (and OCLC, ideally) but which do not already have full text online. (3R9D)
General (3R9E)
Joint staff development (like OCLC training or any specific kind of training that makes us better at what we do in a demonstrable way.) could be done. (3R9F)
We could share policy documents…including collection development and gift policies. Not that one size fits all, but this could help us all develop policies more quickly. (3R9G)