Meeting Minutes
WTKN Monthly Meeting
November 20, 2013
* Indicates action items
Attendees: Laura Wilt, Katy Callon, Inez Hopkins, Kathy Szolomayer, Louise Rosenzweig, Dale Steele,
Shubhangi Kelekar
AASHTO TKN Task Force Meeting & NTKN Coordinating Committee
-
RAC TKN Task Force Meeting:
- AASHTO Board of Directors included in recommendations for reauthorization - support for entities
like TKNs and the transportation library.
-Knowledge management and information management ->integrate these into agencies. What do
we need from non-info professionals to make that work? Siloed portions of agencies – each do their
own thing, don’t know what others are doing. How much overlap is there? Monumental task.
Difficult to get a grasp on everything that’s being recorded.
-Better access to information – RFP submitted to TRB on knowledge management – buy-in from
administration, implement a program. People are being asked to do more with fewer resources,
esp. with downsizing; asking them to do more may be something they just can’t do. Must be
recognized to make their job easier. Benefits to agency and making staff jobs easier. Leni –
conversation with WSDOT risk manager – spending so much time looking for information they don’t
have. Know what we have, verify what we don’t have.
Other Takeaways from TKN Task Force Meeting –
-Katy Callon – thought that the need for a common language/terminology was a good point.
- Dale Steele – 754 report, management of information is often left with the creator. A need for
bringing other people in, guidance. People have different orientations. Who is ultimately
responsible for managing the information? An overseer or teach people how to manage/what tools
to use? Have to make them understand the value – how it pertains to the mission of the agency.
Lots of challenges.
-Kathy Szolomayer – Librarians, records managers, data managers all have different ways of looking
at information management. In library school, certain tracks (like knowledge management) not
available. May need more/current training. Need to get some standards. Used to have protocols for
filing, etc., but things are constantly changing with the technology (digital age). Social media,
tagging, etc. – need to standardize.
- As we develop project proposals, these discussions can influence those. Be thinking about how
something could be done to make the process easier.
NTKN Coordinating Meeting –
-Laura unable to attend. Some updates from other TKNs – reaching out beyond AASHTO regional
boundaries (internationally?). Open to everyone, but still maintain AASHTO boundaries. Might need
to be by geography or by interest to see which group/TKN agencies outside of boundaries would
join. Geography easier, but may be other ways to divide up the group (by agency type). Division by
topic (SLA). Might help to define how to respond to those outside of AASHTO boundaries if they
want to join. Not always a clear designation why certain states belong to certain regions.
-Pooled Fund:
-Still haven’t heard back on authorization for WTKN website updating. Website not currently being
updated, need to know about funding to move forward with that.
- Group subscriptions to libguides, KM calendar, library valuation paper, marketing for TKNs
brochure template – other projects
- Re-posted RFP for technical report project
- Public access plan. New requirement to be implemented to have all reports that are created
using public funds have to be made available. Major implementation effort. (Amanda) creating a
handout to make it easier and to explain impacts, esp. to researchers.
WTKN Yearly Meeting – September 2013 (in Conjunction with Pooled Fund Annual Meeting)
-Welcomed Oklahoma DOT as a new WTKN member. Ron Curb, rep.
-Preserving organizational knowledge. Laura working on an archives page – timeline, old meeting
notes. Place to put things so we know what’s happened in the past. *Former chairs – please send
notes/minutes/anything you might have that would be good to archive (committees you’ve
worked on) -also, maybe paragraph or two during what happened while you were chair – to Laura
or Katy. Retiring chairs will also be asked to submit this.
-Bylaws/Guiding Principles – Laura will send out action items separately to be
approved/disapproved.
-Resources page – Dale brought up Western Association of Map Librarians website (waml.org ) –
toolbox, where we can post lit. searches we’ve done, resources, toolkits, Return on Investment –
resources for our members and for visitors to our page. Might even encourage interest in
membership.
-Membership – Doing a survey to see what expertise people have – what our strengths and the
strengths of our collection. Very-DOT centric, but we do have other members – transit, corporate.
What can we do to help them and what can they bring to the table? They don’t necessarily have
TRB publications, for example. Strategic plan – SWOT analysis (Strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, threats) for each member to know where to go for resources.
-Profiling libraries during meetings. *Think about volunteering. One every other meeting. Projects,
collection, etc. photos of our space – about 20-30 minutes in the meeting.
-Laura will be creating a new member request form and a cheat sheet on how to post to the
website.
*Look through the notes for the meeting (they’ll also be posted on the website). Think about
resources for the Resources page. Categories you’d like to see – lit. search, etc. for the page. What
would be helpful to have?
-Louise – started working on gathering WTKN materials. Great to move forward on these projects.
-Get these projects set up, then evolve to strategic plan. Set the foundations first – show that
we’re a resource for our members, which will encourage people to be more active and for new
people to join.
-How do we take these projects proposed for TKN Task Force/Coordinating members and bring
them down to TKN members to get them involved?
Roundtable/Updates from Members-Kathy, Washington State DOT – storage area – back issues of TRBs, etc. – bring stuff into the
collection. Records needed the space for public disclosure records. Have to clean out area in 2 ½
weeks. Finished it up, had to surplus a lot of stuff, box it up. Brought in movers. State library
catalog – 2 universities are leaving the consortium. State library going through migration, so
WSDOT can’t make any changes. Catalog won’t be accurate until mid-to-late December.
- Louise, Center for Transportation Research Library, Texas – New director for Center and new
research director at TxDOT. Lots of changes, people trying to get up to speed. TxDOT gave library a
grant to update software. Upgraded to Presto, (about $13,000 upgrade). Federated search and a
lot of new options. Data site about ready to be launched. Getting a lot of support from TxDOT.
Katy, Montana DOT– Intern position closes Nov. 30, 7 applicants so far. Cataloging, working on
library training recordings – specifically will breaking them down into modules vs. having one large
recording – in order to make the training more digestible for patrons.
Dale, Arizona DOT - Department rolled out a new webpage (only current things listed). Got a place
on server to locate old planning reports, Planning Assistance for Rural Areas. Getting those into
the catalog and developing interfaces so people can find them. Outreach/field trips to districts to
see what library can do for them. Project manager also goes to talk about Research. Went to
University of Arizona to talk about library school students about internships and other ways
students might be able to help with information management. School of Information Resource
and Library Science Intern Coordinator very positive if someone expressed interest. Also have a
digital information program, may be applicable – make contact with program coordinator.
Working on revision of records retention schedules, identifying publications issued – send to ADOT
and state library. Right of Way unit – archivist person, graduate of library school (Wisconsin),
coordinating with her. Maybe join WTKN conferences.
Inez, Idaho Transportation Dept. – reorganizing highways section, don’t know who they’ll be
under/location (likely to stay in same location), haven’t hired new supervisor. EOS library catalog
now in mobile template (newly live). Tester took mobile phone to meeting and was able to pull up
report during the meeting. New SharePoint site, keeping folks busy. New Connections (newsletter)
– last week FHWA history. ITD history 1800s to current. Will be getting new computer. Finished
editing 3 200-pg reports – one of aggregates.
Laura, Oregon DOT- Research just finished solicitation. Research director’s first time going through
this process, good number of projects proposed. Web page still under old unit, re-doing Research
and Library webpages (library will be aligned with Research). State Library – legislature has a unit
for government employee assistance. Thought they might disband this unit, instead decided to
‘transform’ the state library. Make things more efficient, less overlap in research resources.
Suggesting that history resources currently held by state library should be divided between
archives and historical society (not a state agency, charge high prices). Portal for information
(supposed to be digitized) created by Dept. of Administrative Services. All agency libraries will be a
part of this portal, including ODOT. Not sure what’s going to happen, currently a proposal (not yet
final).
Shubhangi, CalTrans – Listen-only mode. Wrote in chat box that she didn’t have anything to share.