► Overview
Educating users about available information services and assessing their needs.
Library committees, collaborative forums, events and internal outreach practices.
Marketing plans and other agency practices.
Supplemental resources for more information.
Definitions of terms, abbreviations and acronyms used throughout the Quick Guide.
The Quick Guides in this collection address the following issues of interest to transportation information professionals:
► Introduction to the Quick Guides
► Accessibility and Section 508
► Collection Development and Management
As the information services landscape is changing, state transportation agency users of library and information services need to know how their agencies can help them navigate the plethora of ways to search and find the best information they need to do their jobs. Technological advances may spur misconceptions that agency staff can find all they need by themselves on the internet, but technology also broadens the realm of potential value-added information services that transportation libraries and research programs can provide. For agency staff to use—and agency leaders to support—information programs, they first need to know about the programs and understand their value.
User outreach can serve the dual purposes of educating users and ensuring agency and user needs are understood. A variety of other proactive techniques and practices can also keep information services in the forefront of agency culture.
Refer to the Demonstrating Value Quick Guide for more information.
Note: Before initiating a program for outreach and education, transportation librarians and information services providers who are new to an agency should consult with management to identify any limitations on these activities.
The Transportation Research and Connectivity pooled fund study, TPF-5(442), is a consortium of state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other partners that supports the coordinated development of transportation libraries as well as research organizations without dedicated libraries. Study focus areas include communication and networking, digitization, research report accessibility, and developing online resource guides and a toolkit for non-librarians.
This Quick Guide was prepared by CTC & Associates LLC for the Transportation Research and Connectivity pooled fund study, TPF-5(442), under the guidance of the following members of the study's technical advisory committee:
This guide is a living document that is intended to be revised and updated to incorporate new resources. To suggest a resource for inclusion, please contact one of the committee members listed above.
Publication date: December 2022.
NJDOT Research Library Action Plan, Cambridge Systematics, Inc., New Jersey Department of Transportation, September 2021.
Researchers gathered information from surveys, a literature review and reviews of other state DOT libraries to produce a mission statement, goals and objectives, gaps and an action plan, including near- and long-term implementation summaries, to improve New Jersey DOT Research Library's services. Roles, responsibilities, processes and technologies were defined that the agency can use to better meet the needs of internal and external users.
More information about outreach and education is available in the following Quick Guides:
The guidance in this Quick Guide is appropriate for DOTs with or without library spaces and with or without library collections that provide information services to users.