FHWA Research Library

Federal Highway Administration Research Library

Basic Outline for Using TL Cat:
Compiled by Roger Garren
National Transportation Library

• The Transportation Libraries Catalog (TL Cat) is an electronic library catalog that enables the user to search multiple transportation library catalogs online at one centralized source. It allows the user to search all of those participating libraries as one large group; "All Transportation Libraries", or as smaller, more specific groups; "Government Transportation Libraries", "University Transportation Libraries", or "Midwest Transportation Libraries".
  
  * Keep in mind that these group options indicate only the transportation libraries that are currently participating in the union catalog and not all the transportation libraries in the world. 

• To access TL Cat go to the National Transportation Library (NTL) webpage at: http://ntl.bts.gov and click on the "TL Cat" link, then click on the "Continue" link. This will bring you to TL Cat.

• Begin by using the "Basic Search" mode:

  • There are 5 search fields. If you only have information for 1 of the fields, use that. But if you have information for several of the fields, use them and when you start the search, the catalog will combine those terms for you.

  • For example, if you were searching for "Statistical Abstract of the United States ", you would put that in the "Title" field and click "Search".

  • However, if you were searching for "Asphalt Pavement Recycling Technologies" and you knew that the author’s last name was "Bozkurt", you would enter that name in the "Author" field and the title in the "Title" field, then click search.

• Some subject/phrase search examples using AND, OR, NOT:

  • transit planning AND subway

  • highway management OR construction

  • pavement NOT concrete

• Other search options:

  • Author search: lastname, firstname

  • Journal Title or Conference Title search: "Public Roads"

• Full-text: Although TL Cat is primarily a catalog of library holdings, it does provide some direct full-text access to documents that are in the public domain. For example, if you wanted to use TL Cat to find some full-text FHWA documents dealing with Intelligent Transportation Systems, you would go to the advanced search section of TL Cat and perform this search:

  

• Reminder: For more detailed instructions about how to search TL Cat, access TL Cat and click the "Help" icon on the upper left of the screen.

FHWA Research Library

 

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