Engineering 

What's a "technical report" ?

A technical report is "an important means of... recording... the activities and the results of progress and research in... science and technology.

"Where once reports were simply the reporting of government-sponsored research, they are now used as a means of communicating information for technical development throughout the world."

[Report Series Codes Dictionary, 3rd edition, 1986]

MILITARY

DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center) -- This is DTIC's publicly available collection of military reports and documents, going all the way back to the beginning of the 1900's.

NASA

NASA Technical Reports Server [1915+] -- This is a continually growing collection of information about NASA's current and historical research and engineering. It contains:

• NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] information covers 1915-1958
• NASA information covers 1958 to the present
• NIX collection includes images, photos, movies, and videos downloaded from the NASA Image eXchange

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY

Los Alamos Technical Reports site -- In 2002, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) terminated public access to thousands of unclassified reports on nuclear science and technology. Fortunately, almost all of the withdrawn reports were acquired and preserved so that the public has access to them.

National Technical Information Service (NTIS) [1964+, with some info as far back as 1899] - NTIS is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce and is responsible for storing and disseminating technical reports generated from U.S. government-sponsored work. The database includes 3 million+ unclassified DoD, DoE, NASA, and other reports.

NTIS reports can be searched in two ways:

1. 1964+ -- You can search NTIS's site for citations
   
   
2. 1982+ -- Search the NTIS database [this is easier]

To GET reports: Call or go to the Government Publications Library on A Level (410-516-8360), and ask at the reference desk to have an NTIS report ordered for you. This service is free of charge.


Science.gov -- 200 million pages of science information and R&D results for 36+ U.S. government agencies.

• Search here for to get the list of specialized U.S. government databases available for searching
  
• Go here for the page that allows you to search across all of them at the same time

TRAIL (Technical Report Archive and Image Library) -- This site has detailed reports that include materials data, mathematical functions, time series, diffraction patterns, measurements, and much more. ata provided are from direct measurements. 

TRAIL currently contains the following report series:

• U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Civil Effects Test Operations (AEC-CEX)

• U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research (AEC-LF)

• U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Health and Safety Laboratory (AEC-HASL)

• U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Radiation Instruments Branch (AEC-RIB)

• U. S. National Bureau of Standards. Monographs

• U. S. Bureau of Mines Bulletin

WorldWideScience.org -- This web site, which also includes the information within Science.gov (listed above), is a gateway to national and international scientific databases. You can search resources from 17 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and the UK.

The Virtual Technical Reports Center Maintained by the University of Maryland -- In addition to federal sites, this site also lists the holdings of many universities and institutions from around the world. (Beware; unfortunately, many of these links are inactive.)