Accessible, reliable, and timely information is critical for transportation agencies and stakeholders. Yet, a vast amount of transportation-related information is neither collected nor made available for use. Effective library and information services are critical for getting needed information in the hands of practitioners and decision-makers within state departments of transportation. This pooled fund project on Transportation Library Connectivity focuses on making transportation information more readily available through better communication and coordination among state, federal, academic and private sector libraries. The study aims to institutionalize the best practices of individual transportation libraries and regional Transportation Knowledge Networks.

Pooled fund members adopted the following objectives, which were accomplished through member activities and the services of a full-time consultant: 1. Technical guidance and support to members, focused on the smaller libraries that are served by only one librarian. Support activities will include such things as site visits, advice on cataloguing, inter-library loan procedures, on-line catalogues and library Web site presence (Internet and Intranet). 2. Teleconferences of pooled fund members to enable sharing of best practices and new ideas. 3. Promotion of the value and importance of transportation library and information services to top-level transportation administrators throughout the country through targeted activities, such as: * Feature articles that vividly tell the stories of library and information professionals helping agencies save time, money and lives. * Presentations to gatherings of top-level DOT administrators, such as meetings of AASHTO committees (Highways, Planning, Environment, Highway Traffic Safety). *A session for the TRB 2009 Annual Meeting that features top-level transportation administrators pointing to the value of their libraries in critical endeavors at the heart of their agencies missions. 4. Workshops for librarians on the value of the Transportation Librarian's Toolkit, emphasizing how it can be used with top-level administrators to demonstrate the range and value of library and information services. 5. Annual meeting and workshop on strategic planning to help member states identify and communicate the value of library and information services to their internal customers and top management. 6. A project Web site as a one-stop shop for pooled fund resources and business, including the tracking and reporting of relevant state, regional and national efforts. 7. Support of members in their efforts to form and grow regional Transportation Knowledge Networks. 8. Collaboration with the National Transportation Library, the new AASHTO RAC Task Group on TKNs and others, including retired transportation librarians, to enhance communication between transportation librarians and the transportation research community and to build broader support for and funding of a national network of transportation libraries among top-level transportation administrators at the state and federal level. 9. Facilitation of payment of OCLC and TLCat subscriptions for eligible pooled fund members. 10. Implementation of focused research and technology projects, as proposed by members, on specific topics, such as: promotion of the value and importance of transportation library and information services to top-level transportation administrators, collection analysis tools, collaborative approaches to developing strong specialized collections, digital collection development efforts among member libraries and collaboration with university and industry initiatives.

Pooled fund activities will include the range of objectives listed above and others as developed by the Technical Advisory Committee.

Objectives Fulfilled 10/27/11 -- JKK The work of this project has been transfered to TPF-5(237) lead by MoDOT. Please reference this project or the project URL for more information. Quarterly reports other study documents can be found on the project Web site http://www.libraryconnectivity.org/about.html.