CRL invites members to participate in the Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) project, a new Global Resources Network initiative.
TRAIL is an established collaborative project that identifies, digitizes, preserves, and provides persistent and unrestricted access to U.S. federal technical reports in engineering, nuclear science, health & safety, and other scientific and technical fields. The project’s emphasis is on legacy collections produced and distributed prior to 1975.
TRAIL is a national effort. To date, more than 1.9 million pages of public domain technical reports have been scanned, including materials from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, National Bureau of Standards, U.S. Bureau of Mines, and other agencies. TRAIL also plays a critical role in ensuring permanence for these legacy resources, both through enhanced cataloging and shared management of physical collections (print archives).
CRL invites research libraries to participate in TRAIL through the Global Resources Network program. The annual subscription fee is $3,000. (Participants pay a one-time project development contribution of $1,500 in addition to the first-year fee.) Funds will augment the financial support already provided to this program by CRL, GWLA, and other participating institutions.
More information on TRAIL, the proposed participation model, and information on how to join can be found on CRL’s Web site . We invite your comments and expressions of interest by June 22, 2010. Please contact James Simon and TRAIL Task Force Chair Maliaca Oxnam if you have any further questions.
