FHWA Research Library Martha Soneira Team Leader, Strategic Communications Federal Highway Administration.

FHWA Research Library

Martha SoneiraTeam Leader, Strategic

CommunicationsFederal Highway Administration

On BecomingA World-Class Library

Library Enhancements = Happy Customers

Staffing

The FHWA Library Bunch

Cataloger

PhotoCataloger

Technician

Manager

Challenges -- Undoing “Bad Habits”• Library seen as a source for copies of FHWA reports to keep or give away to colleagues.• Photocopying of reports in their entirety in violation of

copyright law.• Using the library as a dumping ground for unwanted or

unneeded publications.• Arrangement of collection by publication type or

geographic location of publisher. • Use of Access Database used to create “catalog” records. • TFHRC employees spending a lot of their time trying to

find information or publications on their own, instead of coming to the library.

More Challenges

• Greater information access• Information overload• Justifying one’s existence• Money

If we have more information today, we suffer for this very reason from a dearth of knowledge.”

Brookings Institute

Library Goals and Objectives

• Collections

• Photo Archive

• Outreach

• Interlibrary Loans

• Document Delivery

CollectionsGoals• FHWA Reports will be fully cataloged, rearranged and

shelved more appropriately

• Organize and catalog State Research reports

Establish a process for

disposition of giveaways

Performance• Aug 05-Mar 06 ½-time cataloger cataloged 1600

items.• Batchloading project was partially successful –

DBText ran against OCLC• 1751 records matched• 2260 unmatched• (due to incomplete Access database records

converted to DBText)• May 06 FHWA Research Library is the only holder of• 1,275 TLCat items• 240 OCLC items

Photo Archive

Goal

• To catalog

and store images for

use by FHWA staff

Interlibrary Loans & Document Delivery

Goals• Establish onsite access to OCLC WorldCat

and Resource Sharing• Use local government, academic & special library collections• Subscribe to electronic resources (online indexes, full-text journals)

Resources Developed• Reference Interview• Targeted Literature Searches• Access to Databases IRRD through Transport Private STINET (Defense Technical Information

Center)

DoD ASSIST UC Berkeley Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Outreach

Goal

• Promote library services

Intranet Web page

Open House

Informational Meetings

Training sessions

• Evaluate

Open House Announcement

• Want an update on library services and resources available to you now?

• Here’s your opportunity to meet with those who care about your information needs!

• Open House• Turner-Fairbank

• Technical Reference Center

• • Meet Technical Reference Center staff and learn about

available and planned services.• Stay for demonstrations of new and improved online

resources

Technical Reference CenterTechnical Reference CenterPatron EvaluationPatron Evaluation

17

8

75

92

88

42

10092

58

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Satisfactionwith

Resources?

Helpfulness? Ex ceedsEx pectations?

T imeliness? Overall?

Excellent

Very Good

Good

Fair

Poor

DATED: December 13, 2005

Question . . .Question . . .

Why does TFHRC need a technical reference

centeror a

professional librarian?

Interlibrary Loan Requests

Our Next Steps

• Searchable online catalog on a TFHRC server

• Create a Web presence for the library with links

• Solicit management support for funding for subscription databases & print subscriptions & books

• Investigate ways to provide more electronic content to customers

• Continually market services to employees

Staying Alive

• Maintain the image of “The place to go for FHWA R&D reports”

• Preserve institutional memory

• Explore options for “going digital”