Locating Technical Reports and Standards

Technical Reports

The major repository of technical reports at the Library of Congress is the Technical Reports and Standards (TRS) unit in the Science, Technology, and Business Division. Along with the hundreds of thousands of government-issued documents, TRS also houses a large number of technical reports distributed by foreign governments, universities and research institutes as well as a number of major international organizations.

Another 1.5 million or so technical reports have been cataloged and are part of the Library's general collections. Examples of these include the papers, notes, reports, and memoranda of the RAND Corporation, the reports of NATO's Advisory Group on Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) and its successor organization, the Research and Technology Organization (RTO), the various document series of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), and its successor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As a general rule, cataloged technical report series kept in the general collections are not duplicated in TRS. These cataloged technical reports series may be found through the Library's online catalog. If a report cannot be found by author and/or title, the catalog should be searched for the series entry (the individual issues of such series often are not analyzed in full, i.e., listed separately). This is because a vast majority of technical reports received by the Library are already fully cataloged by various government or commercial abstracting and indexing services. These titles are available in hardcover, on microfiche, micro cassettes, CD-ROMs or as online databases.

Consult the Library's Databases and Electronic Resources pages or the following print indexes in the Science Reading Room (SCI RR) to identify individual reports:

United States Government Research Reports (USGRR)
Technical Information Service, 1965.
LC Call Number: Z7916.B4715 (SCI RR)

Classified list of OTS printed reports.
Office of Technical Services, Reports Division, October 1947. (PB 81500)
LC Call Number: Z7916.U48 (SCI RR)
Catalogs 1,800 reports on German technology.

OSRD reports.
Bibliography and index of declassified reports having OSRD numbers. Office of Technical Services, Bibliographic and Reference Division, June 1947. (PB 78000)
LC Call Number: Z7916.U5 (SCI RR)
Includes all Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) reports which have OSRD numbers.

Index to PB reports listed in Bibliography of Technical Reports.
Jan. 1953 - Sept. 1954
LC Call Number: Z7916.B473 (SCI RR)

Dictionary of report series codes. 2nd ed.
Special Libraries Assoc., 1973
LC Call Number: Z6945.A2 D5 1973 (SCI RR)
Alphabetic lists of report series codes with related agencies & corporate entries with related codes; sources of report series codes, suggestions on other sources, reference notes.

Report series codes dictionary. 3rd ed.
Dictionary of report series codes.
LC Call Number: Z6945.A2 R45 1986 (SCI RR)
Alphabetic list of report codes & agency names. Alphabetic list of report series codes by corporate author.

Report series code holdings.
LC Call Number: Z6945.A2 D5 1973 (SCI RR)
Companion to dictionary of report series codes.

Hardcopy reports found in the general collections can be requested in any of the public reading rooms in the Jefferson and Adams Buildings. Reports published in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean must be requested in the Asian Reading Room. Reports published by the U.S. Government Printing Office and distributed as part of the federal document depository collection, as well as documents published by the General Accounting Office, are available for use in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Room in the Madison Building (LM 133).

The Microform Reading Room in the Jefferson Building has a set of ERIC documents on microfiche, plus microform copies of some minor record groups. It also maintains a collection of U.S. doctoral dissertations on microform, published by UMI.

Standards

Standards can be found in hard copy either in TRS, the Law Library (OSHA standards or some building codes for example), or searching the Library's online catalog for materials in the general collections. Indexes to Standards are also available in the Library's online databases.

Readers are advised to consult with a reference librarian in the Science Reading Room as to:

• the location of the reading room best suited for specific research on his/her subjects.
• the best sources available for the identification of pertinent references.
• the actual location of the required documents.
• the location of fiche/cassette reader-printers.
• the location of Xerox machines, and copying fees.
• copyright requirements and limitations.