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Transportation Library Quick Guide: Information Professional Competencies: Overview

What's in This Quick Guide

Overview

Enhancing professional skills to meet user needs.

Core Competencies

Technical and soft skill requirements.

Resources

Resources to navigate the transportation world.

Networking

Opportunities to share knowledge, ideas and concerns.

Definitions/Abbreviations

Definitions of terms, abbreviations and acronyms used throughout the Quick Guide.

Introduction

Librarians and other information management professionals must adapt to changing conditions that include:

  • Advancements in information technology
  • Proliferation of information of varying quality and accessibility
  • Changing skill sets and preferences of DOT workforces
  • Increasing challenges maintaining physical transportation libraries

The focus may no longer be on collecting physical information housed on shelves, but rather on the services the information professional can provide to facilitate researchers finding information on a broader scale.

The location, format and reach of library services are transforming and so must the skills and competencies of librarians and information services providers.

Audience

The guidance in this Quick Guide is appropriate for any DOT librarian or other information services provider with or without a library space and with or without library collections.

About the Pooled Fund

Transportation Research and Connectivity logoThe 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.

Spotlight: NTKN

NTKN logo

The National Transportation Knowledge Network (NTKN) is an alliance of transportation organizations that supports a network of transportation information professionals by facilitating the expansion, access to and sharing of transportation knowledge.

Authors and Contributors

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.