# Presentation: 470092

## Tranzinfo  

- Resource and expertise sharing by the transport libraries of Australia and New Zealand
- Andrew Meier, ARRB Group, Australia
- Transportation Librarians Roundtable
- 9 October 2008

## A brief Tranzinfo background

- Formed in the early 1990’s in Australia with later NZ involvement
- Currently approximately 20 active member libraries across government, academic and corporate sectors
- Steered by an annually elected committee of 3
- ARRB funding arrangement with governments across Australia includes providing Tranzinfo leadership
- Annual meeting – location on roster basis

## Library leadership activities

- ARRB Library takes active role in the continued
- development of the Tranzinfo network of transport
- related libraries in Australia and New Zealand:
- Assisting with coordination of consortia purchasing by member libraries
- Expanding resource and knowledge sharing avenues
- Coordinating network-wide alert bulletins for distribution to member client bases

## Key Tranzinfo activities

- Hot Topics alert bulletins
- Automated interlibrary loan system
- Reference Group teleconferences
- Expertise sharing and Skills Bank
- Consortia purchasing

## Hot Topics

- Alert bulletins highlighting a selection of resources published in last 2 years on topic of current interest
- Production shared by roster system amongst members but overseen by editing team
- 15 issues plus 5 updates since 2005
- Topics: Level crossing safety, PPPs, Alternative fuels, Skills shortages, Transport disadvantage
- Made available free on Tranzinfo website – under Publications at _[www.tranzinfo.org](http://www.tranzinfo.org/)_
- Actually markets the network to our client base

## Reference and alerting services

- Information request services and literature searches available for both ARRB staff and external clients
- Transport sector news alerting services provided to ARRB staff to keep them in touch with latest developments

## Tranzinfo ILL system

- Holdings information and ILL agreements operating for many years
- Since 2007, 16 member libraries have shared journal holdings on system that incorporates automated requesting of individual articles
- Around 380 requests in last 12 months
- Began in 2008 to include conference proceedings and now includes over 300 conference titles

## Reference Group teleconferences

- Began in 2007
- Aim to connect reference service staff and foster their professional development
- Topics: Marketing within your organisation, Web 2.0 for special libraries, Acquisitions tips & tricks
- Has led to greater communication across the network

## Expertise sharing

- Active email listservs – for general, reference and ill-related communications
- Recorded skills of member library staff
- Member-only area Skills Bank on Tranzinfo website
- Library experience in subject area other than transport – law, medicine, business information
- Language skills

## Consortia purchasing

- TRANSPORT database through Ovid
- Prosentient InterSearch ILL system
- Other opportunities reviewed each year at annual meeting

## Why Tranzinfo works

- Small enough to achieve communication and cooperation
- Large enough to share workload and costs
- Effectively has a paid leader – most networks function in ‘spare’ time of library staff

## What’s on the way?

- Always looking for opportunities to expand our resource and knowledge sharing
- Initiatives must be within our means
- Begun investigating collaborative reference tools

## ARRB’s information initiatives

- Australian Transport Index (ATRI)
- 	A bibliographic database containing over 155,000 records of books, reports, journal articles, conference papers and electronic publications. Available online via subscription through Informit
- Transport and Road Update (TARU)
-     Bibliographic alert bulletin. To become an RSS feed service during 2009
- Australian and NZ content provider to ITRD

## Contacts

- Tranzinfo website: _[www.tranzinfo.org](http://www.tranzinfo.org/)_
- ATRI database information: _[http://www.informit.com.au/indexes_ATRI.html](http://www.informit.com.au/indexes_ATRI.html)_
- Andrew Meier
- T: +61 3 9811 1603
- Email: _[andrew.meier@arrb.com.au](mailto:andrew.meier@arrb.com.au)_