What does it take to establish a transportation library? Well, let’s start by talking about what it doesn’t take. It doesn’t take a large room or rooms that occupy what might be considered “prime real estate” in a building that might already have limited square footage available for offices and labs. It doesn’t take rows and rows of expensive shelving. And it doesn’t take a huge capital outlay for books, journals, reports, and other physical information resources that might rarely be used.
That is one way to meet the needs of your agency. Despite a popular misconception, physical libraries that continue to lend physical materials and offer community gathering spaces are not going away. Public and academic libraries continue to demonstrate high value for the communities they serve. Being able to walk in and have a face-to-face interaction with a service-oriented, knowledgeable professional provides cues and context that enhance the level of service. This is not available in a virtual environment.
So what does it take? Consider the National Transportation Library (NTL) . NTL was established in 1998 by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). It has always been a “virtual” library. And examples of many other virtual, or digital, or electronic libraries in the world of research are not hard to find. How are they able to do what they do and successfully serve their communities?
In our current postindustrial economy, knowledge is king and intellectual capital is the driving force. Digital technology has allowed us to amplify and connect our intellectual capital assets to a degree unimagined just a short while ago. In the old model of libraries, the intellectual capital assets were generated by and belonged to the authors of the works that the libraries owned. In the new model, the intellectual capital assets are the domain of the information professionals who staff those libraries. In other words, it’s the people who make the libraries, not the collections that the libraries own. Access has overtaken ownership.
The intellectual capital of information professionals is amplified through organizations like the National Transportation Knowledge Network (NTKN), which allows information professionals to easily, readily, and quickly access and utilize the intellectual capital assets of their fellow members.
So what does it take to establish a transportation library? First it takes a recognition of the value to the organization that intellectual capital provides. Next, it takes a willingness to add information professionals to the staff. Qualified information professionals make it possible to put books, reports, maps, journal articles, and audio-visual files in the hands of researchers who need them. And they also play a vital role in furthering an organization’s knowledge- and data-management capabilities, ensuring that an agency is able to comply with federal mandates related to information access, and creating a sustainable information infrastructure. It’s far simpler that it might seem. It just takes commitment.
I’d like to acknowledge Denise Bedford for much of the thinking that led to this post. See “The Role of Librarians in a Knowledge Society: Valuing Our Intellectual Capital Assets.”
I’d also like to thank Mary Moulton and Leighton Christiansen of the National Transportation Library for their contributions.
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