General Information

What was the genesis of TRAIL?

TRAIL began as a Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) project with the Center for Research Libraries to increase access to and preserve government technical reports. TRAIL is now a CRL Global Resources Network Initiative which provides unrestricted access to this unique body of literature via the TRAIL Search Interface.

What are some of the concerns associated with access and preservation of government documents?

Government documents that have not been digitized or that are not born-digital are vulnerable for a number of reasons:

  • libraries are downsizing print government documents collections due to space issues
  • many government documents are deteriorating or are being moved to remote storage
  • for many of these documents, access exists only through series records in library catalogs, if at all, while TRAIL individually catalogs each document.

What activities is TRAIL involved in?

  • acquiring content from donor libraries
  • arranging for digitization of the materials, including large fold-outs and other special-handling materials
  • cataloging/creating metadata for each report
  • arranging for storage/preservation of digital files
  • creating and maintaining the user interface that provides access to TRAIL digitized content