Technical reports are an integral part of the scientific communication process, and are a very important means of communication in the scientific and technical fields. A search of the technical literature is an essential part of a quality literature review, yet they can be somewhat of a challenge to locate. Technical reports are produced by a large number of organizations, and are used to report research progress to sponsors. These sponsors are generally government agencies, but also corporations or academic institutions. Reports tend to be timely, succinct and detailed, making them very valuable resource in the sciences.

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) is the official source for government-sponsored U.S. and worldwide scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information. NTIS includes 3 million citations to reports on business and management studies, international marketing reports, materials and chemical science data, technology innovations, and training tools from 1983 to the present. The NTIS database is publicly accessible and includes citations to reports indexed from 1990 to the present. To locate publications published prior to 1990, please consider using GOV.Research_Center.

For those reports not indexed in NTIS or for more subject specific coverage, please consider DOE Reports Bibliographic Database, DOE Information Bridge, DTIC Technical Reports Database, or others listed below:

1. Bibliographies of Technical Reports - A searchable index to technical report literature sources, obtained mostly from the Computer Science Technical Report Archive.

2. Corps of Engineers Library Information Online (CELIO) - is the database/electronic catalog representing the collections of all the libraries within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

3. Defense Technical Information Center - DTIC's Technical Report Collection includes the last 11 years of unclassified, unlimited technical report citations to full text reports. The scope of DTIC's collection includes areas normally associated with Defense research; however, since DoD's interests are widespread, the collection also contains information relating to: hard sciences such as Biological and Medical Sciences and Environmental Pollution and Control; Behavioral and Social Sciences; DoD Directives and Instructions; budget estimates and Program Element Descriptive Summaries (PEDS); Conference and Symposia Proceedings; and patents and patent applications.

4. DOE Reports Bibliographic Database - U.S. Department of Energy database citing DOE technical reports indexed from January 1994 to the present.

5. EPA Information Sources - provides access to various EPA technical and public information resources.

6. GrayLIT Network - The GrayLIT Network is the world's most comprehensive portal to Federal gray literature. By offering a mode of communication for this hard-to-find class of literature, the GrayLIT Network enables convenient access by the American public to government information.

7. ICASE Technical Reports - Abstract Lists for ICASE Technical Reports, as well as, full electronic versions in postscript and pdf formats are available here by year of publication.

8. Internet Connections for Engineering (ICE) Index - Technical Reports - Contains links to a number of computer science and other technical report servers germane to the engineering fields. Maintained by Cornell University's Engineering Library.

9. NACA Technical Reports - The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). As NASA's predecessor organization, NACA was chartered in 1915 and was operational from 1917 until 1958. NACA played an integral role in the development of the United States' fledgling aeronautics industry as the main research body for a collection of federal, commercial and university interests. The main product of NACA's research was its multi-tiered report series, many of which are available in scanned format here.

10. NASA Center for Aerospace Information (CASI) Technical Report Server - The CASI TRS database contains bibliographic citations and abstracts for publicly available aerospace documents, journal articles, and conference proceedings.

11. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Technical Report Server - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Technical Report Server currently contains close to 8,000 online reports. This "database of Abstracts, Citations and full text Technical Reports written by and for the scientific and technical community" is searchable by keyword, and users may scan technical report abstracts and citations by year.

12. NASA Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR) Index Online - A link to page images in Adobe Acrobat format of issues of the printed STAR bibliography.

13. NASA Technical Reports Server - A keyword searchable database of the technical report literature produced by the various NASA component organizations.

14. NCSTRAL - Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library - NCSTRL (pronounced "ancestral") is an international collection of computer science technical reports from CS departments and industrial and government research laboratories, made available for non-commercial and eduational use.

15. NPARC Technical Report Server - The NPARC Alliance is a partnership between the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) and the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) dedicated to the establishment of a national, applications oriented computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capability, centered on the NPARC computer program.

16. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) - NTIS is the federal government's central source for the sale of scientific, technical, engineering, and related business information by or for the U.S. government and complementary materials from international sources. Search all 600,000 (1990 - present) web site records by using the simple search or advanced search options.

17. NOAA Central Library Catalog -An online catalog containing the holdings of NOAA libraries around the country. Collections consist of reports, special data files and datasets, documents, articles, and audiovisual resources related to ocean science and atmospheric sciences.

18. Science and Engineering Current Awareness Metapage - From the Scout Report, this page contains links to a variety of "current awareness" resources, including technical reports servers.

19. Scientific and Technical Information Network (STINET) - STINET provides access to citations to unclassified unlimited documents that have been entered into DTIC's Technical Reports Collection since 1985 as well as some full text reports for those citations. You may order documents online.

20. Society of Manufacturing Engineers Technical Papers Search Engine
    SME publishes hundreds of technical papers annually detailing the theories, applications, and innovations in manufacturing -- timely material for students, instructors, researchers, and manufacturing professionals.

21. Society of Petroleum Engineers Technical Reports - Over 30,000 papers available for review and purchase. UVA users should request papers via Interlibrary Services.

22. Virtual Technical Reports Center - The Institutions listed here provide either full-text reports, or searchable extended abstracts of their technical reports on the World Wide Web. Because many institutions do not distinguish between technical reports and other types of research publications, this site also contains links to preprints, reprints, dissertations, theses, and research reports of all kinds.

23. WATERS - Wide Area Technical Report Service - A WAIS-based distributed technical reports repository.

24. WAVES - the catalogue of the libraries of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, WAVES contains over 200,000 records, from 1700 to the present day. WAVES is particularly strong on the gray literature for the marine sciences, with emphasis on Canadian records, and other organizations like ICES, FAO, etc. Updated daily, the database contains records for books, documents, and serials, and includes links to over 5000 full-text documents. Available in English and French, Canada's two official languages.

25. Yahoo - Technical Reports - Links to collections of technical reports, mostly in computer science, but also useful for some European countries and companies.

Last Update: September 12, 2007

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