LibGuides: Government Documents: Technical Reports

Databases

ADAMS Database from the NRC
This Web-based access tool will enable you to search for Nuclear Regulatory Commission public documents in the ADAMS database. These documents include officially released technical reports all the way down to emails, correspondence and memoranda.
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ADAMS stands for Agencywide Documents Access and Management System
Contrails
The Contrails project is an effort of the government documents depository at the Paul V. Galvin library to digitize aerospace technical reports and other historical resources from the 20th century.
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Digital trails of technical literature formed in the wake of aerospace research.

DTIC Online: Public Technical Reports
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) serves the DoD community as the largest central resource for DoD and government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today .
For more than 60 years DTIC has provided the warfighter and researchers, scientists, engineers, laboratories, and universities timely access to over 2 million publications covering over 250 subject areas. Our mission supports the nation's warfighter.
DTIC is a DoD Field Activity within the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L), reporting to the Director, Defense Research & Engineering (DDR&E).
Publicly Accessible Information All visitors can search DTIC's publicly accessible collections and read or download scientific and technical information, using DTIC Online service. DTIC also makes available sensitive and classified information to eligible users who register for DTIC services.
NASA STI Repository (NTRS)
The NTRS is a valuable resource for students, educators, researchers, and the public for access to NASA's current and historical technical literature since it was first released in 1994. The NTRS is a valuable resource for students, educators, researchers, and the public for access to NASA's current and historical technical literature since it was first released in 1994. NTRS provides access to approximately 500K aerospace related citations, 90K full-text online documents, and 111K images and videos. NTRS numbers continues to grow over time as new scientific and technical information (STI) is created or funded by NASA. The type of information found in NTRS include: conference papers, images, journal articles, photos, meeting papers, movies, patents, research reports, and technical videos.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Publications Portal
The publications database includes many of the most recent publications of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The database, however, is not complete. Additional publications are added on a continual basis.
National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP) from EPA
The EPA's new site for technical reports

NTRL- National Technical Reports Library
The National Technical Information Service serves as the largest central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today. For more than 60 years NTIS has assured businesses, universities,For more than 60 years NTIS has assured businesses, universities, and the public timely access to approximately 3 million publications covering over 350 subject areas. Their mission supports the Department of Commerce mission to promote the nation's economic growth by providing access to information that stimulates innovation and discovery.

National Technical Reports Library (NTRL)
The database for the National Technical Information Service
National Transportation Library from DOT
The central repository for DOT research results and technical publications and the central clearinghouse for transportation data and information of the Federal Government
NOAA Technical Reports from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL)
This is a NOAA-wide series used for publishing scientific and technical papers, that because of their length or their large data sets are not suitable for publication elsewhere. This series includes NOAA Technical Reports, NOAA Technical Memorandums, and NOAA Data Reports. Most files are in PDF format with any associated data files, figures, and programs available from GLERL's FTP site.
NOAA Technical Reports from the National Environmental, Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)
The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) is dedicated to providing timely access to global environmental data from satellites and other sources to promote, protect and enhance the Nation's economy, security, environment and quality of life.
NOAA Technical Reports from the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC)
The Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Center administers scientific research and monitoring programs that support the domestic and international conservation and management of living marine resources.
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Scientific Publications Office
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, founded in 1871 as the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries, is the Nation's oldest Federal conservation agency. As such, it has been publishing the results of its research for more than 125 years, and the tradition of scientific publishing is continued today by the NMFS Scientific Publications Office (SPO) in Seattle, Washington, which is part of the Science Information Division of the Office of Science and Technology at NMFS headquarters.
Science.gov
Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2200 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results. Science.gov is governed by the interagency Science.gov Alliance

OSTI.GOV
SciTech Connect: DOE Scientific and Technical Information provides free public access to over 200,000 full-text documents and bibliographic citations of Department of Energy (DOE) research report literature. SciTech Connect: DOE Scientific and Technical Information provides free public access to over 200,000 full-text documents and bibliographic citations of Department of Energy (DOE) research report literature. Documents are primarily from 1991 forward and were produced by DOE, the DOE contractor community, and/or DOE grantees. Legacy documents are added as they become available in electronic format.

The Information Bridge contains documents and citations in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics of interest related to DOE's mission.
The Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information provides free public access to over 200,000 full-text documents and 3,000,000 bibliographic citations of Department of Energy (DOE) research report literature. Documents are primarily from 1991 forward and were produced by DOE, the DOE contractor community, and/or DOE grantees. Legacy documents are added as they become available in electronic format.

The Information Bridge contains documents and citations in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics of interest related to DOE's mission.
TRAIL (Technical Report Archive And Image Library)
A colloborative digitization and preservation effort by universities and associated with the Center for Research Libraries The mission of TRAIL is to ensure preservation, discoverability, and persistent open access to government technical publications regardless of form or format.

Treesearch: US Forest Service Research and Development
Treesearch is an online system for sharing free, full text publications by Research and Development scientists in the US Forest Service. Included in Treesearch are scholarly works published by the agency as well as those published by others, including papers appearing in journals, conference proceedings, or books. All publications appearing in Treesearch are based on peer reviewed research to make sure they provide the best scientific information possible.
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The Treesearch website has been delivering publications since January 2004, starting with a collection of just 7,000 and passing 40,000 by its tenth anniversary, with thousands added each year. A new version of Treesearch was launched in December 2013
USGS Publications Warehouse
The Pubs Warehouse provides access to over 130,000 publications written by USGS scientists over the century-plus history of the bureau

Finding Technical Reports

Technical reports are produced from the fruits of scientific inquiry, quite often from government sponsored research. As such, government agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) produce and disseminate millions of reports documenting various research efforts. These reports can be of great value to researchers, especially those interested in very narrow scientific subjects.

There are several ways to search for technical reports. In the box to the left are listed online databases providing indexing and limited full-image access to technical reports. Below is a search box for the IIT catalog, where tens of thousand of technical reports are indexed. Technical reports indexed in the IIT catalog may be available directly in a full-image format, or may be in machine readable microfiche format. Should a particular report only be available in microfiche, the report can be scanned by depository staff to provide easy digital access. Please consult the Microfiche Scanning tab above for details. Finally, the despoitory holds thousands of older technical reports that have yet to be digitized or added to the IIT catalog. Should you desire a specific report but cannot locate it, please contact us using the infor to the right and we'll be sure to help you track it down.

Search the IIT Library Catalog

Use the library search to find technical reports, especially those NASA reports not available from NASA's Technical Report Server. Please note that the NASA Technical Reports Server has not been at full strength since March 20, 2013. Only 75% of the reports that were online on March 19, 2013 are currently available.

Subject Guide

Aric Ahrens

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Subjects: Advanced Manufacturing, Aerospace Engineering, Autonomous Systems and Robotics, Engineering, Government Documents, Health Physics, Manufacturing Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical, Materials, & Aerospace Engineering, Public Administration