The objective of the project was to provide suggestions for improving the acquisition and dissemination of transportation information from developed countries. The study included a survey of FHWA staff and other highway professionals, a visit to information database producers in Europe and Japan, an inventory of foreign information sources and documents vendors, a citation and document acquisition analysis of databases that contain foreign records, and a final report with recommendations. Study results concluded that the U.S. highway community does not regularly access foreign and domestic online databases; foreign database producers (OECD and ECMT) collect records (in English, French and German) from approximately 30 advanced countries; research-in-progress information is not consistently included in these databases; Japanese information is not easily accessible in the U.S.; and foreign documents cited in the subject database of NTIS and COMPENDEX can probably be acquired domestically, whereas in TRIS, IRRD, and TRANSDOC, probably only about one-third to one-half of the documents cited can be acquired in the U.S. Recommendations include: improving access to information resources by developing a national transportation library system; providing education and training, conducting periodic international conferences for information providers and users; developing a national transportation link connecting catalogs and databases from different sources; providing better access to translation services and products; and providing resources to TRIS to include foreign-language records and other bibliographic information from abroad.
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