Information Services at Texas Transportation Institute TTI

1
Information Services at Texas Transportation
Institute (TTI)

• Sandy Tucker, Research Librarian, TTI
• Midwest Conference on Library Information
  Services for Transportation
• August 15, 2002 University of Wisconsin,
  Madison

2
About TTI

• State Agency
• Part of the Texas AM University System
• Headquartered at Texas AM University in College
  Station
• Additional offices in Dallas, Arlington, Houston,
  Austin, and San Antonio
• 570 employees 275 professionals, 105 support
  staff and 190 students

3
About TTI, cont.

• Mission To solve transportation problems
  through research, to transfer technology, and to
  develop diverse human resources to meet the
  transportation challenges of tomorrow.

4
TTI Library and Information Services

• Library customers
• TTI employees, TxDOT employees, public
• Most interactions by telephone, e-mail, fax, or
  mail
• Library collection in-house
• Small, primarily TRB and TTI publications
• Online catalog is part of TTI Information System
• Oracle database (recently moved from Inmagic)
• If catalog record for TTI publication, same
  record is used in the authors online resume

5
TTI Library and Information Services

• Emphasis on providing access
• Literature searches, using primarily databases
  provided by Texas AM General Libraries
• Document delivery
• Review lists of documents needed and determine
  how best to obtain them TTI library, Internet
  full text, Texas AM Library, interlibrary loan,
  purchase

6
TTI Library and Information Services

• Emphasis on providing access, cont
• Document delivery, cont.
• If College Station employee
• Send materials from TTI library through campus
  mail
• Send URLs of items available on the Internet
• Provide call numbers for items at Texas AM
  library
• Refer to interlibrary loan at Texas AM library
• Order reports from NTIS, using deposit account

7
TTI Library and Information Services

• Emphasis on providing access, cont
• Document delivery, cont.
• If out-of-town employee, TTI administrator, or
  TxDOT employee, library staff will acquire and
  send books and articles
• Current awareness services
• Route electronic tables of contents of journals
• Contract with Ingenta for about 50 titles
• E-mail lists in Microsoft Outlook Contacts

8
TTI Library and Information Services

• Current awareness services, cont.
• Post monthly newsletter on intranet
• Generated dynamically from Oracle databases of
  news articles and catalog records
• Announced via e-mail message with link
• Brief articles on information resources
• Interactive list of new acquisitions can check
  a box to request to borrow

9
TTI Library and Information Services

• Collection development
• TTI contributes sum to Texas AM General
  Libraries
• TTI librarian places requests for purchases that
  are charged against the TTI account
• Texas AM General Libraries catalogs and retains
  the materials
• Instruction guest lecturer at graduate seminars
  in Dept. of Civil Engineering

10
TTI Library and Information Services

• Web services
• Develop and maintain TTI Internet site
• Collaborate with TTI Network and Information
  Services to develop and maintain intranet
• Develop web sites to support contract projects of
  TTI researchers
• Use the services of programmers and graphic
  artists not part of library group
• Inmagic programming done by library group

11
TTI Library and Information Services

• Contract projects
• National Work Zone Safety Information
  Clearinghouse (ARTBA)
• Web site for AASHTO Technology Implementation
  Group (AASHTO)
• Web site for Transportation Pooled Fund Program
  (NCHRP)
• Scoping Study for a National Strategic Plan for
  Transportation Information Management (NCHRP)

12
TTI Library and Information Services

• Staffing 5 FTEs plus 2 student workers
• Budget TTI funds and contract funds