Conducting Stakeholder Outreach to Facilitate Environmental Restoration in the 21st Century: A Case Study of Transportation Resource Exchange Center (T-REX) Website and Virtual Library”

The Transportation Resource Exchange Center (T-REX) is the first Virtual Library dedicated to providing information about the transport of radioactive wastes and materials (RAM) to DOE and non-DOE stakeholder groups. Almost six years ago, the US Department of Energy (DOE) National Transportation Program (NTP), which coordinates transportation activities for all DOE nonclassified shipments of radioactive and mixed wastes and provides information about these shipments to DOE and non-DOE audiences, recognized the need and responded. In June 1998, the ATR Institute (ATRI), a research organization at the University of New Mexico, developed the T-REX under a cooperative agreement with the DOE NTP. The ATRI has created the T-REX Website and Virtual Library (www.trex-center.org/) to serve as a \"one-stop source,\" national information clearinghouse. Positioned as a public interface for public outreach, the T-REX is a vital conduit linking stakeholders who need public information on the transport of RAM and stakeholders who produce it. Stakeholders are diverse and hold varying levels of knowledge and expertise regarding RAM transport, as well as regarding using the Internet to search for information. Management and dissemination of information and the overall design of the T-REX Website and Virtual Library must necessarily meet the differing needs of the several widely diverse audiences.