Federal Highway Administration Research Library

About Us

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Research Library mission is:

In support of the FHWA's research, development, and technology (RD&T) mission to investigate new highway technologies and transfer those research results to the transportation community, the FHWA Research Library will provide collections, electronic resources, and services in support of the research needs of FHWA staff; and collect and maintain all research reports by or for FHWA RD&T.

The FHWA Research Library exists to serve the information needs of FHWA employees. The FHWA Research Library will answer questions from the general public as time permits. Non-FHWA employees looking for copies of FHWA reports should see Sources for FHWA Reports.

In addition to a collection of books, reports, technical standards, and periodicals, the FHWA Research Library provides reference and research services and interlibrary borrowing services to FHWA employees.

The FHWA Research Library staff can help employees find information on a topic; perform comprehensive literature searches in support of research projects; search library catalogs, article databases, and the Internet; and locate facts and statistics.

If the FHWA Research Library collection does not contain the materials needed by staff, library staff can obtain materials such as journal articles, conference proceedings, and technical reports, through interlibrary borrowing.

Highlights of the FHWA Research Library Collections

• Federal Highway Administration Office of Research, Development, and Technology reports, including the TS (Technical Sharing) series; IP (Implementation) series; RD (Research and Development) series; and the current HRT (Highway Research and Technology) series.
• State departments of transportation (DOT) and University Transportation Center research reports.
• Transportation Research Board (TRB) publications.
• American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) publications.
• Public Roads magazine, beginning with the vol. 1, no. 2, June 1918 issue.
• Bureau of Public Roads (FHWA predecessor agency) historical materials.
  
  

FHWA Research Library Catalog

The library's catalog is available to search from FHWA employees' desktops.

This Web-based catalog can help identify materials that are in the library’s physical collection, including FHWA research and development reports, TRB and AASHTO publications, State DOT and University Transportation Center reports, books, journals, conference proceedings, dissertations, and historical materials. The online catalog can be searched by keyword, title, author, subject, and date, etc. Federal Highway Administration employees can request to borrow items found through catalog searches. Employees at FHWA should go to the U.S. Department of Transportation's SharePoint site and search for "Federal Highway Administration Library" for a link to the online library catalog.

Only a fraction of the physical library collection is currently included in the online catalog. If employees don’t find what they're looking for, please contact library staff. The item may be in the library collection, but not yet in the catalog.

Online Tools

Subscription Databases

Federal Highway Administration employees have access to subscription databases (Compendex, IEEE Xplore, American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) Digital Library, Corrosion Analysis Network, etc.) and ebook collections (ASCE ebooks and CRCNetBase) through the FHWA Research Library SharePoint site.

National Transportation Library (NTL) Catalog is comprised of the NTL Digital Repository (digital copies of technical, research, and policy documents related to all modes of transportation) and links to other Web accessible transportation resources.

Transportation Research International Documentation (TRID) Database

The TRID is a newly integrated database that combines the records from the Transportation Research Board's Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD 's) Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) database. The TRID database is the world’s largest database covering published transportation research.

Borrowing

The FHWA Research Library loans circulating materials to FHWA employees and onsite contractors only.

The FHWA Research Library does not loan file copies of FHWA reports, most reference/legal materials, entire issues or volumes of periodicals, or historical materials.

Loans from the FHWA Research Library collection to the general public shall be made through the requestor's local library through an Interlibrary Loan.

More information about FHWA Research Library’s Interlibrary Loan Policy can be found here.