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About The National Transportation Library
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Contacting NTL |
General
Public:
E-mail: Librarian
Phone: 1-800-853-1351 or 202-366-3492
Fax: 202-493-2027
Hours: 9am-5pm EDT
DOT Employees:
E-mail: library@dot.gov
Phone - Technical Library: 202-366-0745
Phone - Law Library: 202-366-0749
Hours: 8am-4pm EDT
National Transportation Library
Headquarters, W12-300
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE
Washington, DC 20590
Policies and Guidelines
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Charged with improving access to transportation focused materials
needed by federal, state, and local decision-makers, the National
Transportation Library's (NTL) mission is to facilitate and increase the
availability of information that supports transportation policy,
research, operations, and technology transfer activities. NTL was
established in 1998 by the Transportation Equity Act
for the 21st Century (TEA-21).
Specifically, TEA-21 mandates that NTL:
- maintains a collection of statistical and other information
needed for transportation decision-making at the Federal, State, and
local levels
- improves the ability of the transportation community to share
information
- collaborates with other transportation libraries and other
transportation information providers, both public and private
- enters into cooperative agreements or contracts with public
and nonprofit private entities (including State transportation
departments, metropolitan planning organizations, and institutions of
higher education)
- researches and develops new methods of data collection,
management, integration, dissemination, interpretation, and analysis
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, part of the Research and
Innovative Technology Administration of US DOT, administers the National
Transportation Library.
The National Transportation Library maintains a substantial
presence in both digital and traditional library environments. NTL
Headquarters is the former US DOT Library, which continues to offer the
resources and services it always has, and continues to be open for use
to the general public.
Brief History
In 2008 a new NTL was created through a merger with the US
Department of Transportation Library. Since its inception in 1969 the US
DOT Library had served as the Department’s focal point for technical and
legal information and research. Offering the traditional library
resources of an expansive book and journal collection, reference
services, electronic database access and interlibrary loan, the US DOT
Library met the research needs of DOT staff for decades while also
serving as one of the nation’s most important repositories of
transportation information available to the general public.
The new, merged National Transportation Library will continue to
serve and meet the needs of DOT staff as well as organizations and
citizens across the United States.
Reference Services
The NTL's reference staff assists US DOT staff and the general
public in locating documents and reports, statistics and other data, and
subject experts here at DOT. Staff is also available to address
questions on NTL resources including our library’s catalog, TRIS
Online, and our numerous statistical and legal databases.
Reference staff is available from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST to answer
telephone calls (1-800-853-1351/202-366-0746). Reference requests can be
submitted at any time via the web through Ask-A-Librarian.
Networking
The NTL networks with other transportation libraries, agencies,
and organizations to increase access to information and expand
opportunities for the professional development of transportation
librarians. Some examples include:
NTL Integrated Search System
The NTL Integrated Search System is a tool that
searches the NTL Digital Repository, TRIS Online, and
records for other web accessible transportation resources, including
research and policy sites of the State DOT and University Transportation
Centers' research publications and document repositories. The resources
in the Integrated Search System may be searched jointly or
independently.
TRIS Online
The TRIS Online database, a partnership
between the Transportation Research Board and NTL, contains the
bibliographic records of more than half a million transportation
research publications, including technical reports, books, conference
proceedings and journal articles. Currently there are over 40,000
records with links to full text electronic copies. TRIS Online
coverage includes works on transportation planning, finance, design and
construction, materials, environmental issues, safety and human factors,
and operations for the modes of highways, transit, railroads, maritime
and aviation.
TLCat
TLCat is a national union catalog of
transportation libraries. The National Transportation Library in
cooperation with the Midwest Transportation Knowledge Network (MTKN)
created the group catalog. The NTL and Transportation Pooled Fund Study
enable increased participation from key state DOTs, university
libraries, and Federal libraries in transportation. NTL makes TLCat
available free to the public. More information can be found
on our About TLCat page.
Transportation Knowledge Networks
NTL provides leadership and coordination in the
development of regional and topical transportation knowledge networks,
State DOT Library peer information exchanges, training on using
information resources, and cross agency collaborative efforts such as
the Rural Transportation Working Group. The NTL takes a leadership role
working on information access issues like standardization, service
availability, and cooperation. NTL has sponsored a number of national
and international conferences working with the Transportation Research
Board, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the
World Road Association (PIARC), the World Bank, and other organizations.
Transportation Librarians Roundtable
The Transportation Librarians Roundtable (TLR), a
monthly web conference series, is an initiative of the NTL, co-sponsored
by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials (AASHTO), Transportation Research Board, and the Special
Libraries Association's Transportation Division. The TLR's purpose is to
provide transportation librarians with opportunities to learn more about
issues of mutual concern and interest and also to have a new means of
regular communication among members of that community.
Collections
Subject concentrations include general transportation, surface,
and water transportation. Special topics include: bridge construction
and maintenance, driver studies, engineering, highways and highway
safety, history of transportation, land utilization, marine engineering,
mass transit, merchant marine, navigation, oceanography, pipelines,
railroads, ships and shipbuilding, statistics, traffic engineering,
traffic surveys and forecasts, urban transportation, and waterways
One of the NTL’s fastest-growing collections is exclusively
digital, serving as a permanent archive for statistical, technical,
research and policy documents required by researchers and decision
makers and provided to NTL by federal, state, local, tribal and other
government agencies.
The Library also maintains a sizable law collection. It includes
general legal materials, with a specialty in government administration,
as well as materials specifically related to transportation law.
Policies and Guidelines
Review the policies and
guidelines that govern what NTL does, from how the collection is built
to how that collection is made available to you.
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