AASHTO RAC TKN Task Force Meeting

May 3rd, 2012

Corrections and additions to these notes? Please send to Kathy at

Present: Leni (Chair), Cynthia, Dale, Daniel, Jeff, Karen, Louise, Lynn, Rita, Sena, Sue

Kathy--notes

Absent: Mary, Dawn

AGENDA

Roll Call

  1. Review Meeting Minutes from last meeting – no comments, corrections or additions made
  2. NTKN Chairs Meeting Update – Minutes attached

Amanda, Laura Wilt (for Janet Coles), Karen Perrin, Lynn Matis, Leni

  1. Logo update (contest extended) – at this time it’s unknown if any ideas have been submitted
  2. Prepping for the NTKN Meeting – July 19th (see Leni’s notes from the meeting) If you have feedback on the preliminary agenda, please get that forwarded to the group (through Leni or your TKN chair).
  1. Update on Better Safety Results ThroughInformation Sharing: A Workshop, July 12-13, 2012, Irvine, California. Has been narrowed to just safety. Requests are being sent to invited speakers.New focus is on Safety information. Organizers are working through list of invitees and have some back-up names. Examples of collaborative information and/or sites are still needed. Please give this some thought and forward any examples to Amanda.
  2. A component of the TRB Workshop will be to showcase examples of collaborative efforts to share information in traffic or in safety across agencies or institutions. Does anyone know of any good examples of information sharing activities that could serve as exemplars for attendees? What are efforts that the TKNs can model or to which we can contribute? This initiative could be in the form of a website, but does not have to be.
  3. Final Review (sans NTKN Logo) Publication format – Laura and Dawn (attached)

Leni asked if there are any final concerns with the format. Consensus was that it looks very good. Resizing the top photo (of the plane) to be congruent with other photos is still being worked on. Also, when we have a TKN TF logo, that will be added, probably aligned at the top. (So far, there have been no submissions for a logo.)

  1. Research Reports
  2. Repository Paper – Dale

There has not been a meeting since the last meeting of this group. Dale has started on a draft paper and plans to submit it to his group this month, for comments. He would like to get that to the TF in the next couple of months. Discussion of the difference between the terms “repository” and “depository”, and which should be used. We could not come up with a real difference, though some folks think of depository as dealing with other things like money. Let Dale know if you have additional input on this; we should probably pick something and stick with it.

  1. Distribution – Sena

Sena is scheduling a meeting for early this month and should have a report for next meeting.

  1. Format – PMQ has asked us to take responsibility for this task – any volunteers to lead this?

No activity. Sena is interested in participating, but cannot lead the group. FHWA should be in on this. Dale mentioned that there is a skill to preparing abstracts, and there are standards, but by and large abstracts are not well done, as far as letting folks know what a report is about. Jeff suggested that perhaps someone with a cataloging background would be good to lead this task? Paul Burley’s name was mentioned, and Jeff will contact him. Daniel mentioned that in Wisconsin, the researchers fill out the technical page, not library staff or others who were not involved with the projects being documented. It was suggested that some of these ideas could/should be incorporated in guidance for researchers in preparing the technical documentation page (e.g., style guides, NISO standards, etc.).

  1. Quality - RAC-CUTC paper

Next step – to circulate this to RAC and UTCs to identify any additional concerns we’ve missed and to begin collecting successful practices.Survey needs to go out but has not, yet. Ball is in Leni’s court and the discussion above has helped in terms of things that could be added to the survey.

  1. Communication Plans
  2. Video – Kathy S and Lynn – survey prepped; let’s look at how to combine into a general marketing plan for other products of this group.After-meeting note: Leni reviewed the survey and has some suggestions to streamline, so this in ongoing.
  3. Papers
  4. Webinar organization – Jeff and Laura

Jeff reported that Laura told him that she was working with Kendra to set up a WordPress page as a test concept, but no progress yet.

Possible calendar format: WY State Library

  1. Climate Change Clearinghouse – Guidance document update and usage reporting – Mary

Mary is not on the call; Leni asked Kathy to resend the document to her to accept changes and get this rolling.After-meeting note: Document sent to Mary and Aileen.

  1. Data Management and the TKN – Andy, Frances and Mary

No update – none of these folks are on the call today. Leni asked Daniel about how in Wisconsin, the DOT Library is used as a front end for data. The Library does field many “out of the blue” queries that do not go directly to programs where data can be found. Leni is talking to Frances tomorrow and will talk to her about how to combine various efforts that are afoot related to data.

  1. 2012 International Transportation Research Information Access Workshop– Lisa or Jennifer

No update – this is scheduled for fall. Leni will ask for a written update.

  1. NCHRP 20-90 – Anita (Managing Transportation Information)

Anita not on the call – we’ll get her on the agenda next time. There has been a lot of feedback on the interim report. Panel members are hopeful a useful toolkit will be created with the new direction the consultant is taking.

  1. Items/Actions the Regional TKNs would like us to assist with/do? (I’d like to add this as a regular item on the agenda to try to encourage more interaction)

Lynn said she thinks this would be a good regular agenda item, especially after the NTKN meeting. Karen commented that web issues amongst the regional TKNs might be one area this group could help with (having some symmetry in the sites, common informational components, input as to what would be helpful to have on the sites, etc.).

  1. News from other groups

No reports.

Upcoming Events and Ideas Needed

Librarian Roundtable, May 10, 2012 - TOPIC: National Transportation Knowledge Network Digitization Working Group: Current Activities and Next Steps, SPEAKER: NTKN Digitization Working Group

Suggestions for sessions at the TRB Annual Meeting?

No immediate reaction. Let Leni know.

Research Needs? What are the issues you wish you had an answer to? Don’t worry about whether it’s a researchable topic yet, just capture what comes to mind when you think about:

  • what you need to do your job better
  • what your patrons need to be more successful at obtaining the information they need
  • practices in library science, information architecture, information management that the transportation field could benefit from but are not broadly in use for us today
  • and other avenues that lead to some of the improvement areas we can investigate.

Hopefully some ideas will come out of the NTKN meeting this summer . . .

Meeting adjourned at 9:29.

Next Meeting June 7th, 8:30 Pacific, 60 minutes