Bob Sweet Information Resources Manager University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute

1. SLA Annual ConferenceJune 13, 2006Transportation DivisionUpdate on International Transportation Information“Travelogue” Bob Sweet Information Resources Manager University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute bsweet@umich.edu

2. Planning My Trip Why do you want to go so far? Who’ll go with you?

3. Washington, D.C. a good place to start Prime contacts from travel agent extraordinaire:

4. The Request *What are the greatest challenges facing your library? Or, what are the greatest challenges that your country faces, relative to the management and dissemination of transportation information? *What are some of the recent developments that have been beneficial to you in carrying out your work as a transportation-information manger and provider? *What are some of the tools or resources that might be of interest to librarians in North America who wish to gain access to your country's transportation information? *Are there any issues in your country that you would like North American librarians to be aware of that could affect the worldwide transfer of transportation information?

5. The Replies It’s good to hear from old friends.

6. Sweden Birgitta Sandstedt Head of Library and Information Centre VTI / Olaus Magnus väg 35 / SE-581 95 Linköping / Sweden Tel: +46-13-20 40 00 Direct: +46-13-20 42 14 E-mail: birgitta.sandstedt@vti.se / www.vti.se/bic • VTI is an independent, internationally established research institute which is engaged in the transport sector. Our core competence is in the fields of safety, economy, environment, traffic and transport analysis, behaviour and the man-vehicle-transport system interaction, and in road design, operation and maintenance. VTI is a world leader in several areas, for instance in simulator technology. • www.vti.se • www.transguide.org • www.transtopic.se • www.itrd.org

7. Sweden What are the greatest challenges facing your library? Or, what are the greatest challenges that your country faces, relative to the management and dissemination of transportation information? • Fund raising (a never ending issue it seems). • Sponsors verify customer satisfaction before renewing contracts; ISO 9001 assures that customers are “in focus” • Intensified co-operation with the researchers as proposals are written to ensure enough money for information services • It’s necessary to consult with researchers at the start of large; rather than reacting to literature requests • New competence/ research centers developing present opportunities, but tax limited resources

8. Sweden What are some of the recent developments that have been beneficial to you in carrying out your work as a transportation-information manger and provider? • National study: Future Provision of Information to the Transportation Research Community, 2005 was carried out in 2005. Recommends stronger support for VTI Recommends increased funding Recommends working group be formed to plan for future demands • Invited talks Largest Swedish annual conference in the traffic and transport research area Swedish Telematics Valley http://www.telematicsvalley.org,; “The trend is certainly positive.” • The Swedish Road Administration has announced that they intend to set up a Swedish technical transfer centre where “we will be the engine”

9. Sweden What are some of the tools or resources that might be of interest to librarians in North America who wish to gain access to your country's transportation information? • Transguide www.transguide.org • Transguide is a portal where our catalogue is searchable (about 125 000 references, all described with English keywords and many with English as original language). The e-publications (about 7 000) can be searched separately and in full text as well. • Databases containing links to upcoming conferences worldwide, websites, libraries, databanks and bibliographic databases are also available. • We also have a directory with our periodicals.

10. Sweden Are there any issues in your country that you would like North American librarians to be aware of that could affect the worldwide transfer of transportation information? • A closer and formalised co-operation between the Nordic Baltic Transportation Libraries and the Nordic Road Association/Baltic Road Association starting from this year. • The formation of a Swedish T2C (still at an early planning stage).

11. Finland Sirpa Haapamaki Library, Finnish Road Administration (Finnra) P.O. Box 33, FIN-00521 Helsinki FINLAND tel +358 204 22 2034 fax +358 204 22 2652 http://www.tiehallinto.fi mailto:sirpa.haapamaki@tiehallinto.fi

12. Finland • Council of State working to rationalize and synergize the R & D activities between all civil service *Within the Ministry of Transport and Communications a task force was named in 2005 to synergize the R & D activities in transportation • Task force is planning a portal to display our research programs, projects, and reports; Sirpa is a member. • Portal will “connect and cover” the library collections of all our transportation libraries; targeted for spring 2007 • Similarities to MTKN

13. Germany Helga Trantes Bundesanstalt fuer Strassenwesen (BASt)/Federal Highway Research Institute Bruederstr. 53, D-51427 Bergisch Gladbach, Germany http://www.bast.de Phone: +49-2204-43-336 * Fax: +49-2204-43-673 trantes@bast.deAsdas

14. Germany Problems / Challenges • Budget restrictions, staff reductions • Convince management that quality information needs resources • Offer the best possible information (quality) at the lowest possible price • Keep up with the pace of technical development and new information sources • Convince staff (experts) that not all information can be found on the • internet (Google)

15. Germany Resources • ITRD database, containing additional abstracts for a lot of non-English records • BASt website (publications and research projects also in ITRD and indexed with keywords from the ITRD thesaurus) • National and international databases (for example, TRIS Online) and websites • Participation in national licenses for charged (archive) databases • BASt specific intranet portal (not open to external users), offering one single interface for the retrieval of very different information resources (databases, library catalogues, websites, ordering systems, etc.) • Networking and listservs • Information exchange on the national and international level • Test runs with automatic indexing (planned)

16. Austria Karin Haid Head of Library and Documentation Kuratorium fuer Verkehrssicherheit (Austrian Road Safety Board) Vienna, Austria E-Mail: karin.haid@kfv.at

17. Austria What are the greatest challenges facing your library? Or, what are the greatest challenges that your country faces, relative to themanagement and dissemination of transportation information? • Sever staff reductions; from 420 hours per month to 285 hours per month • Budget cuts all departments and branch offices of the organisation. Many staff members were dismissed, got part-time contracts or were replaced by cheaper free-lance staff. • Must maintain high quality services; research demands it • Could not alter acquisition policy • What did we do? *Cancelled all direct-to-publisher subscriptions; placed orders via two booksellers *More efficient invoicing *Answer general questions on the intranet. *Promote end-user searches in the library’s bibliographic database (We do not promote our services to external users but if we are contacted we also provide services for this user group.)

18. Austria What are some of the tools or resources that might be of interest to librarians in North America who wish to gain access to your country’s transportation information? • ITRD • Most Austrian universities’ and research institutions’ research results are published in about 10 different series and also in some serials. The KfV library has subscribed to all of them and inputs this information into the ITRD. In this way, the international dissemination of Austrian transportation information is safeguarded.

19. Austria What are some of the recent developments that have been beneficial to you in carrying out your work as a transportation-information manager and provider? • ITRD membership (not a recent development) • See Karin’s article “Why it Pays to Be an ITRD Member (http://www.itrd.org under the heading “Membership”)

20. Austria Are there any issues in your country that you would like North American librarians to be aware of that could affect the worldwide transfer of transportation information? • Perhaps it is helpful for North American colleagues to know the URL of the Austrian union catalogue of scientific libraries http://aleph.onb.ac.at

21. Asia Jane Macoustra Tel. +44 (0) 20 8395 6603 Mob. 07786 43263 Surrey – England Email: jane@tai-panresearch.com President SLA Asia Chapter

22. Asia • Have you tried Aardvark? http://www.aardvarknet.info/user/aardvarkwelcome/ You could put out some messages to the consortia or associations that are listed. • Or Google Librarian www.googlelibrarian.com You can sign up and then post a message to the list.

23. Asia

24. China Through Roberto Sarmiento: • Beijing JiaoTong (Transportation) University http://lib.njtu.edu.cn/english/index.htm • Shanghai JiaoTong (Transportation) University http://www.lib.sjtu.edu.cn/english/index.htm

25. World Bank Public Information Centers 102 countries

26. The Request • We'd like to know • What is your best source for transportation information? • Are there established transportation libraries that are available to serve you? • What is the biggest challenge you face in bringing transportation information to your clients? • What would you like transportation librarians in North America to know about your country, that might help us all to improve the free flow of transportation information globally?

27. The Responders • Argentina (McCleod influence) • Bolivia • India (McCleod influence) • Mongolia • Philippines • Turkey • Uzbekistan

28. Argentina Susana Guppy World Bank Argentina, Chile, Paraguay & Uruguay http://www.bancomundial.org.ar http://www.worldbank.org In Argentina our WB Depository Library is in the Ministry of Economy and they are a specialized transport library. Araceli Gonzalez (Director of the Center of Information and Documentation,Ministry of Economy, Argentina) agacos@mecon.gov.ar Stella Maris Zoppi (WB Depository Library Program): Szoppi@mecon.gov.ar

29. Bolivia Claudia Encinas World Bank - Bolivia CENTRO BOLIVIANO DE ESTUDIOS MULTICIPLINARIOS Contact : Maria Renee Rivero email. cebem@cebem.com CENTRO DE INFORMACION DE LA SUPERINTENDENCIA GENERAL DEL SIRESE Contact : Miriam Agramont sg@sirese.gov.bo CENTRO DE DOCUMENTACION UDAPE Contact : Maria del carmen Vargas email: mvargas@udape.gov.bo

30. Bolivia • What is your best source for transportation information? • Don't have one • Are there established transportation libraries that are available to serve you? • Not a specific transportation library. • What is the biggest challenge you face in bringing transportation • information to your clients? • What would you like transportation librarians in North America to know about your country, that might help us all to improve the free flow of transportation information globally? • That here in Bolivia the people prefers to read materials in Spanish, to improve the free flow of information in any topic, we would request to have the information in our official language : Spanish

31. India • Hema Balasubramanian • Public Information Center • The World Bank, New Delhi Office • 70 Lodi Estate, New Delhi - 110 003 • Tel: 5147 9465 ; Fax: 24619393 • email: hbalasubramanian@worldbank.org • http://www.worldbank.org.in • Central Road Research Institute - http://www.crridom.org/ • Asian Institute of Transport Development - http://www.aitd.net/ • Central Institute of Road Transport - http://www.cirtindia.com/ • Planning Commission, Govt. of India http://planningcommission.nic.in/ • Indian Roads Congress- http://www.irc.org.in/hrb/members.htm • IRC Publication- http://www.mahapwd.com/irc/research.htm

32. Mongolia Sunjidmaa Jamba Communications & DLC Officer The World Bank Ulaanbaatar Office 5F, MCS Plaza Building, Seoul Street-4, Ulaanbaatar-210644 Mongolia (976 11) 312647 ext. 207 7 (976-11) 312645 sjamba@worldbank.org

33. Mongolia • What is your best source for transportation information? The most of cases we use our own sources of information within the bank group, which could be for instance, publications, studies and some background information in each country, etc. • Are there established transportation libraries that are available to serve you? • No • What is the biggest challenge you face in bringing transportation information to your clients? • As Mongolia has been sgifting to a market economy, to change habits and understanding of our clients about transportation sector like any other infrastructure sectors, as public services based on commercial principles but not services just depending on state support, so on.

34. Mongolia • What would you like transportation librarians in North America to know about your country, that might help us all to improve the free flow of transportation information globally? • Huge country with less density of population, the sector is being shifted into commercial based principle operation, partly privatized.

35. Philippines Cheerly Rosal KDC Assistant Knowledge for Development Center World Bank Office Manila G/F The Taipan Place, F. Ortigas Jr. Ave Ortigas Center, Pasig City Tel: (63) 2 917 3088 Fax: 636 2866

36. Philippines • What is your best source for transportation information? • Internet • Are there established transportation libraries that are available to serve you? • None that I know of. • What is the biggest challenge you face in bringing transportation information to your clients? • Limited resources and access.

37. Philippines • What would you like transportation librarians in North America to know about your country, that might help us all to improve the free flow of transportation information globally? • Find out if there is a linkage between my country and yours in terms of sharing information on transportation. And if there is, how best to make the resources available to the widest possible audience/clients. If there is none, try to establish a link to better share information on transportation globally. Make the available resources on transformation and the sharing of such resources be known to all librarians, information officers and other information managers for widest dissemination.

38. Turkey Arsev Umur Aydinoglu Public Information Assistant World Bank Turkey Office Tel: 90 (312) 459 8337 Fax: 90 (312) 446 2442 E-mail: aaydinoglu@worldbank.org www.worldbank.org.tr Dear Mr. Sweet, Thank you for your e-mail sent on May 2. Unfortunately, there is a little portfolio in Turkey in transport sector at the moment and we do not have much requests on publications related to transportation. Therefore, we are not interested in being a member of your organization. I have saved your coordinates in case we will need to contact you in future. Thank you.

39. Uzbekistan Matluba Mukhamedova PIC/Communications Officer World Bank Country Office in Tashkent Tel: (998 71) 138-59-50 Fax: (998 71) 138-59-51/52 e-mail: mmukhamedova@worldbank.org

40. Uzbekistan • What is your best source for transportation information? • a) ads published and circulated by transportation companies • b) information/inquiry offices of the transportation companies • c) magazines • d) Internet resources • Are there established transportation libraries that are available to serve you? • In my country I don't know whether we have such libraries • What is the biggest challenge you face in bringing transportation information to your clients? • To define proper channels to address target audiences. Not obviously library resources.

41. Uzbekistan • What would you like transportation librarians in North America to know about your country, that might help us all to improve the free flow of transportation information globally? • The capital of Uzbekistan is a bridge from West to East. Air transportation is quite safe and can connect you with such countries as South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, India, China, and others. • Railway and automobile transportation covers the whole country; transportation from the capital city to historical tourist centers is good. Information can be obtained in tourist or transportation companies, Internet resources.

42. Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. It’s good to be back. Thank you for your attention