UPDATE ON TRIS and Information Services

Activities

GTRIC June 11, 2006

Barbara PostManager, Information Services

Bpost@nas.edu

TRB Update

• TRIS – new data entry system

• TRB Publication Index

• Research in Progress Database

• Transportation Research Thesaurus

TRIS • Over 633,000 records• Completed implementation of the new

system– Data entry – May 2005– Export functions – (NTL June 2005)– Import functions– Reload of TRIS sent to NTL– Refinements

TRIS Data Entry System• SQL Database (relational database)

• Two types of record – monographs and components

• Additional fields– OCLC number– Author e-mail addresses and contact

information– Summary report links as well full text links– Links for direct ordering

Benefits of New System• Database Clean-up

– Over 3100 duplicate records eliminated (continuing to revise duplicate checking)

– Added dates for thousands of records that lacked that field

– Clean up of serials, agencies – providing more information

– Maintenance of TRT and indexing terms

TRIS is still not perfect

Benefits of New System (continued)

• Flexibility of importing and exporting material– Possibility of adding additional “TLIB” files or

databases of unique collections• VTRC – historical material

• Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation – regional planning and transit material

– Loaded records for all the papers from the TRB 2006 Annual Meeting into TRIS

– New TRANSPORT product on Dialog and other vendors

What is indexed in TRIS?

• Want TRIS to comprehensive as possible – limits• Definitely want all Federal and State DOT

research reports• Other types State reports – what is its shelf life,

broad interest (don’t index driver license manuals)• Proactive in obtaining material but realize gaps• Notify us of material you think should be in TRIS

TRB Publications Index• January 2006 new TRB Publications Index

• First product from new TRIS system

• All TRB reports, papers and articles from 1923-date

• About 32,000 records

• In May – over 87,000 visits to Publications Index and almost 58,000 unique ip address

• Indexed on Google

TRB Publications Index

• Google type search

• Simple and advance search

• Allows to mark and view search results in brief or full formats

• Search results can be downloaded or e-mailed directly to user

RESEARCH in PROGRESS http://rip.trb.org

• RiP Web site – Over 8600 RiP records

• Includes international transportation research from the TRIP Database of ITRD

• FHWA Turner Fairbank Research Projects

• University research

RiP Usage

• Over 117,000 visits in May – Over 29,000 unique IP address– Indexed by Google

• Since January 2006, 370 projects added and over 1600 updated.

Transportation Research ThesaurusNCHRP Project 20-70 – Transportation

Research Thesaurus Improvements

• Develop a database to allow TRB to maintain the authoritative version of the TRT

• Integrate the TRT into TRIS

• Publish the TRT on the Web

Improving the TRT

• Panel – Subcommittee of LIST– Sandy Tucker Chair Nelda Bravo, Susan Dresley, Andy Everett,

Seyem Petrites, Ken Winter

• Reviewed Web design• Decided on maintenance policy

– Michael Kleiber consultant– Review by Thesaurus committee

TRT Project• January 2006 released TRT on TRB’s Web

site

• March 2006 maintenance feature operational – clean up of terms and TRT is now maintained on TRIS system

• April 2006 TRT integrated into TRIS data entry system (big improvement for indexers)

Features of TRT on Web• Allows both searching and browsing for

terms

• Allows view in hierarchical, alphabetical, KWIC, and KWOC displays

• Links from term for direct searching in RiP, TRB Publications, TRB’s E-Newsletter

• Thesaurus is can be downloaded in XML

(Can also download updates)

Any questions?