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About The NTL

Charged with improving the availability of transportation-related information needed by Federal, state, and local decision-makers, the National Transportation Library's (NTL) mission is to increase timely access to the information that supports transportation policy, research, operations, and technology transfer activities. The NTL was established in 1998 through the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, administers the National Transportation Library.

Activities include

• Network leadership, developing regional knowledge networks.
• Technology and tools for access to information resources, integrated search, bibliographies, metadata standards.
• Collection collaboration for long term preservation of transportation information resources.
• Digital preservation.
• Reference and referral services.
• Standards for information sharing and access.

Networking

The NTL networks with other transportation libraries, agencies, and organizations to increase access to information and expand opportunities for professional development for transportation librarians. As example, The Midwest Transportation Knowledge Network, was created as a prototype for the development of regional networks.

NTL works with several TRB Committees including the Library and Information Science in Transportation Committee and the Library Services Committee and works with TRB to publish TRIS Online and the Transportation Research Thesaurus.  Along with other federal and national libraries, the NTL supports evolving standards for digital access and preservation.

TLCat

TLCat is a National Union Catalog of Transportation Libraries.  It is the OCLC Group Catalog supported by the National Transportation Library with the cooperation of the Midwest Transportation Knowledge Network, the prototype regional group, and the National Pooled Fund Study for Library Connectivity which supports State Departments of Transportation participation.  NTL makes TLCat available free to the public.   Search TLCat to locate holdings in many transportation libraries.  Click here for more TLCat information.

NTL Integrated Search

The NTL Integrated Search is a tool for searching TRIS Online and the NTL Catalog which includes both the Digital Repository and Portal Links to Other Transportation Websites.  This application, created to improve searching of all of these datasets provides a single point of entry, technology and search technique for these major resources. As it is developed further, it will include other subsets of resources that the transportation community requires.  The application mimics the search techniques of TLCat to further simplify use by the transportation researcher.  The Search All option allows the user to search TRIS Online and the NTL Catalog at the same time for those elements that are shared, title, for example.  The application not only provides a sophisticated search facility, including full text search of the NTL Digital Collection, it also allows the user to capture the bibliographic information and export it to other applications for bibliography development. 

TRIS Online

The TRIS (Transportation Research Information Service) database is a product of the Transportation Research Board and is published free to the web by the National Transportation Library.  It is the premier bibliographic index for the industry and has been supported by the transportation community since its inception in the early 1970’s.  As one of its earliest projects, the NTL worked with the TRB to make most of the contents of TRIS available free to the public on the web.  NTL continues to work closely with TRB to keep the information up to date and user friendly.

NTL Catalog

The NTL Catalog is a metadata repository for information about digital documents preserved in NTL’s digital repository and for links to other web accessible transportation resources.  These two kinds of  resources, the digital collection and portal, may be searched together or separately. 

NTL Catalog Metadata Guidelines

The NTL catalog is a metadata repository for information about the digital objects preserved in the digital repository and about the websites selected for the NTL Portal.  The Catalog uses a modified Dublin Core metadata schema. Current refinements are defined to support the use by the transportation community.  The current NTL Catalog Metadata Guidelines are available for review and use by other transportation resource providers. This standard follows the Dublin Core Metadata Library Application Profile.

Download our guidelines in PDF (136kb) or HTML . They are also available in table format as a table- PDF (110kb) or a table - HTML document. The table format includes the XML element names.

Digital Repository

The Collection of the NTL is entirely digital.  Electronic resources for the NTL Digital Repository are selected according to the NTL's    Collection Development Policy.  The NTL Digital Repository is a permanent archive.  It includes primarily statistical, technical, research and policy documents provided by federal, state, local, tribal and other government agencies that are required by researchers and decision makers.

Portal Access to Other Transportation Websites 

The NTL also indexes websites.  These Portal Records provide web access to related transportation websites, transportation organizations and other repositories, such as State Departments of Transportation research and policy sites, lists and University Transportation Centers' research publications and repositories.

Reference Services

The NTL's professional reference staff assists customers to find statistics, locate a report, or contact an expert. Staff also handles questions about TRIS Online and TRANSTATS databases and creates the USDOT FAQ’s.  Reference staff are available from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time to answer telephone calls (1-800-853-1351). Email requests can be sent any time to  DotComments@dot.gov,   RITAInfo@dot.gov,  Tris@bts.gov,  Librarian@bts.gov or Answers@bts.gov .

Other Activities

Other activities in which the NTL provides leadership are the development of State DOT Library peer exchanges, training on using information resources and cross agency collaborative efforts such as the Rural Transportation Working Group.

The NTL has sponsored a number of national and international conferences working with organizations such as the Transportation Research Board, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Road Association (PIARC), and the World Bank. The NTL takes a leadership role working on information access issues such as standardization, service availability and cooperation.