Providing Public Access to Grey Literature at the National Transportation Library

ABSTRACT

The National Transportation Library (NTL) at the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) provides national and international access to the crucial transportation information that falls within the scope of grey literature, including the results of U.S. government funded research. Founded as an all-digital library in 1998, NTL’s collections include full-text-born digital and digitized publications, data products, and other resources. All items are in the public domain and available for reuse without restriction. Since 2016, NTL has led the implementation of the USDOT’s Official Public Access Plan issued in response to the February 22, 2013 Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies entitled Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research. This paper discusses the effect this plan has had on a grey literature library and the efforts to create and maintain a public access repository, as well as exploring relationships between repository platform, contents, and people.

KEYWORDS:

• Public access
• digital repositories
• national libraries
• transportation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. U.S. Department of Transportation, “Plan to Increase Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research Results,” 2015, https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/29637 (accessed June 16, 2020).

2. Office of Science and Technology Policy, “Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies: Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research,” 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_memo_2013.pdf (accessed June 16, 2020).

3. U.S. Department of Transportation, “ROSA P,” 2020, https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/ (accessed June 16, 2020).

4. U.S. Department of Transportation, “National Transportation Library Collection Development and Maintenance Policy, version 1.3,” 2018, https://ntl.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/ntl/219951/ntlcollectiondevelopmentpolicy132018-01-22.pdf (accessed June accessed 16, 2020).

5. U.S. Access Board, “Corrections to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Final Standards and Guidelines,” 2018, https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/corrections-to-the-ict-final-rule (accessed June 16, 2020).

6. U.S. Department of Transportation, “National Transportation Knowledge Network (NTKN),” 2020, https://transportation.libguides.com/ntkn (accessed June 16, 2020).

7. U.S. Department of Transportation, “Transportation Librarians Roundtable,” 2020, https://transportation.libguides.com/TLR (accessed June 16, 2020).