Scientific and Technical Reports

• Locating and Obtaining Reports
• Major Indexes
• Full-Text Reports Available Online

Locating and Obtaining Reports

Science.gov

Science.gov, a science-oriented feature of USA.gov, is an attempt to consolidate all government-sponsored scientific and technological resources into one comprehensive gateway site. Users can browse by topic, perform a keyword search across the entire science.gov site, or search multiple science and technology databases.

NTIS

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is the largest central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today. Because NTIS is required by law to be financially self-sustaining, the agency charges a fee for the publications it distributes.

Sources at UNT

Many scientific and technical reports that are owned by the UNT Libraries can be identified by consulting the UNT Library Catalog.

We also have print indexes that can help you identify scientific and technical reports published by government agencies. These indexes, located in the Government Documents Abstracts and Indexes section, will tell you how to obtain a report and how much it costs. Online indexes are often available from the same agencies that publish the print indexes.

Major Indexes

Listed below are some of our most print popular indexes for technical reports. They are located in Government Documents Abstracts and Indexes unless otherwise specified.

The following access points are generally available in technical report indexes (both print and electronic):

• Personal Author
• Corporate Author and/or Sponsoring Agency
• Keyword or Subject Heading from a thesaurus
• Technical Report Number and/or Contract/Grant Number of Order Number

DOE: Energy Research Abstracts. 1976-1995

Indexes reports from the Department of Energy (DOE), its contractors, and other sources on all aspects of energy. [NOTE: Many of these energy reports are depository items available at UNT, but are indexed only in this source.]

DOE Information Bridge, a component of EnergyFiles Virtual Library of Energy Science and Technology, provides free, convenient, and quick access to full-text and bibliographic records of DOE-sponsored research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics.

Energy Citations Database provides access to citations from 1948 through the present, which includes information from DOE and its predecessor agencies, the Energy Research & Development Administration (ERDA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).  Links to full-text publications are provided when available.

OpenNet, a database sponsored by DOE's Office of Declassification, provides easy, timely access to recently declassified information, including information declassified in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

EPA: EPA Publications Bibliography 1970-

Indexes all technical reports and journal articles submitted to NTIS by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Some of these reports are depository items available at UNT, but this index will not indicate depository status or give the call number.

The National Center for Environmental Publications and Information (NCEPI), a central repository for all EPA documents, has thousands of titles in paper and/or electronic format available for distribution. Search EPA's National Publications Catalog for a list of currently available titles.

NASA: Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR). 1963-1995

Indexes reports from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NASA contractors, and other agencies covering aeronautics and related sciences.

The NASA Technical Report Server is an online database that contains bibliographic citations and some full-text documents.  The database indexes STAR file series, journal articles and conference proceedings (Open Literature file series), Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports, Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports, as well as reports from the Center for Aerospace Information, the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and more. (NACA was the predecessor organization to NASA.) These citations represent a portion of the information available to the public through the NASA RECON system.

Consult the NASA Thesaurus and Supplement for precise search terms. Both require the Adobe Acrobat Reader.   Document Ordering Information includes an order form and a price code available here.

For more resources related to aeronautics and space research, see NASA's Scientific and Technical Information page.

NLM: Index Medicus 1960-
[Located in Science and Technology Library, Abstracts and Indexes Section]

The premier index to the world's medical literature, published by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Indexes articles from about 3,000 biomedical journals. To see if UNT owns a particular journal, search for the title in the Library Catalog.

Medline is is a database of over 14 million article references published in more than 4500 biomedical journals and magazines. 

Use PubMed, NLM's experimental online search service providing free access to to access a superset of NLM's MEDLINE database containing MEDLINE, in-process citations and articles from selectively indexed journals that normally would not be selected for MEDLINE indexing. 

MEDLINEplus: contains pages of carefully selected links to Web resources with authoritative health information, including dictionaries, directories, organizations, news sources and 400 health topics.  In addition, MedlinePlus provides access to medical information via medical encyclopedias and drug directories, etc. as well as links to pre-formulated searches of the MEDLINE database. Also available en español. 

The Medical Subject Headings comprise NLM's controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles, for cataloging books and other holdings, and for searching MeSH-indexed databases, including MEDLINE citations in PubMed.

NTIS: Government Reports Announcements and Index (GRAI). 1965-1996
[Formerly Government-wide Index and U.S. Government Research and Development Reports]

Indexes reports distributed by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). This was the most  comprehensive print index for locating government-related technical reports. Subject Coverage includes business, the environment, health and safety, science and technology, and more. 

NTIS offers a Simple Search feature and an Advanced Search feature for approximately 400,000+ titles. Use these features to locate full-text electronic publication and/or order publications and other products issued by NTIS since 1990. Limit your search by Subject Area or search using a Technical Report number. Search the Downloadable Collection - since 1997, NTIS has been optically scanning all of the technical reports that it receives. Because of this effort, NTIS is now able to provide the full text of reports received since 1997 as downloadable PDF files. This means that when an agency stops maintaining a link to a report on its web site, NTIS will offer a downloadable version - for a fee.

NTIS Customer Support  provides information on placing orders and the current prices.

The GOV.Research_Center™ Web site offers comprehensive subject searching of all NTIS collections. A "Day Pass" and Subscription service are available for a fee.  The GOV.Research_Center is a partnership between the National Technical Information Service and the National Information Services Corporation.

USDA:  AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access)

AGRICOLA is a machine-readable database of bibliographic records in the National Agricultural Library and covers materials dating from the 16th century to the present. The records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including plant and animal sciences, forestry, entomology, soil and water resources, agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, agricultural products, alternative farming practices, and food and nutrition.

USGS:  Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey. 1879-

Issued annually in print, this catalog lists books and maps issued by the USGS in its Professional Papers, Bulletins, Water-Supply Papers, Water-Resources Investigations, Circulars, Open-File Reports, and other formal series.  Also included are known articles by USGS personnel published in non-USGS journals and books.

Search Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey indexes publications from 1880 to present.  It does not include full-text documents, but many of the publications are available from the UNT Libraries.  Check the Library Catalog for availability. 

New Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey lists the latest titles published  each month.

See:  U.S. Geological Survey Books and Other Publications Online for full-text publications available on the Internet.

Full-Text Reports Available Online

The following Internet sites provide full-text electronic copies of scientific and technical reports.

DOE Information Bridge (U.S. Department of Energy — Office of Scientific and Technical Information)

A component of EnergyFiles, this site provides free, convenient, and quick access to full-text and bibliographic records of DOE-sponsored research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics.

E-Print Archive (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

A fully automated electronic archive and distribution server for research papers in the areas of physics and related disciplines, mathematics, nonlinear sciences, computational linguistics, and neuroscience. Started at Los Alamos National Laboratory in August 1991, this archive is based upon activities supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

ePrint Network (U.S. Department of Energy — Office of Scientific and Technical Information)

A "one-stop-shopping" site for eprints in science and technology including physics, materials, chemistry, mathematics, biology, environmental sciences and other areas related to DOE's research interests.

Federal R & D Project Summaries (U.S. Department of Energy — Office of Scientific and Technical Information)

Search research summary and awards data (over 240,000 records) from the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation.

Healthfinder.gov (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

This award-winning federal Web site for consumers, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services together with other Federal agencies, links to carefully selected information and Web sites from over 1,500 health-related organizations.

MEDLINEplus (National Library of Medicine)

Contains pages of carefully selected links to full-text Web resources with authoritative health information, including dictionaries, directories, organizations, news sources and over 400 health topics.  In addition MedlinePlus provides access to medical information via medical encyclopedias and drug directories, etc. as well as links to pre-formulated searches of the MEDLINE database.

National Academy Press (National Academy Press)

Online access to more than 2500 full-text publications in science, technology and public policy. National Academy Press is the publisher for the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. Browse titles by category, search by title, or search by keyword.

National Library for the Environment (Committee for the National Institute for Environmental Science)

Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, CNIES works to improve the scientific basis for making decisions on environmental issues and communicates environmental information through an easy-to-use electronic National Library for the Environment. The Library includes abstracts and full-text resources related to environmental science and links to over 300 environmental journals. 

National Transportation Safety Board Publications (NTSB)

Formal reports produced by the NTSB, including safety recommendations, press releases and bibliographic information for aviation, highway, marine, pipeline/hazardous materials, and railroad accident reports.

Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library (NCSTRL)

An international collection of computer science research reports and papers made available for non-commercial use from a number of participating institutions and archives.

OTA Legacy (UNT)

Full-text archive of all U.S. Office of Technology Assessment reports. Reports can be browsed by year and by subject, and can also be searched.  Reports offer balanced assessments of technology used to solve problems ranging from acid rain to worker training. Agency existed from 1981 until 1995. [The Adobe Reader is required to access these PDF files.] 

PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

NLM's experimental online search service providing free access to to access a superset of NLM's MEDLINE database containing MEDLINE, in-process citations and articles from selectively indexed journals that normally would not be selected for MEDLINE indexing.

Receive Government Reports Immediately Using the NTIS Electronic Delivery Options (National Technical Information Service)

Since 1997, NTIS has been optically scanning all of the technical reports that it receives. Because of this effort, NTIS is now able to provide the full text of reports received since 1997 as downloadable PDF files. This means that when an agency stops maintaining a link to a report on its web site, NTIS will offer a downloadable version. For those preferring not to spend the time downloading or who do not want to store NTIS publications on a hard drive, NTIS offers these documents for delivery on CD at lower than the paper copy price. A paper copy will always be available if desired. 

Science.gov

This site is an attempt to consolidate all government science and technology resources on one site. Users can browse by topic, or perform a keyword search across the science.gov site as well as multiple science & technology databases.

Science Accelerator (U.S. Department. of Energy — Office of Scientific and Technical Information)

Science Accelerator searches multiple science resources simultaneously, including R&D results, project descriptions, accomplishments, and more, via resources made available by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), U.S. Department of Energy. These resources reside in the deep Web where popular search engines do not go. Through its collections and services, OSTI makes DOE research results available to scientists, researchers, engineers, academia, the international science community, and science attentive citizens. Science Accelerator was developed and is made available by OSTI as a free public service. For more information, see the DOE Science Accelerator concept booklet [PDF format requires Adobe Reader].

Spaceline

Spaceline is a collaboration between NASA and the National Library of Medicine.  Its goal is to "acquire and disseminate information about space life sciences scientific research conducted in support of the Vision for Space Exploration." Includes a weekly current awareness service that "includes space life sciences publications deriving from all of NASA, that is, from any source of NASA support, work conducted at a NASA facility, or authored by a NASA employee or contractor."

STINET Scientific & Technical Report Collection (Defense Technical Information Center)

A key element of the DoD Scientific and Technical Information Program, DTIC is the central Department of Defense facility for providing access to and facilitating the exchange of scientific and technical information. Part of DTIC is STINET. The scope of the STINET collection includes areas normally associated with U.S. Department of Defense research; however, since DoD's interests are widespread, the collection also contains information relating to hard sciences such as biology and medicine; environment; behavioral and social sciences; DoD directives and instructions; budget estimates and Research and Development Descriptive Summaries (RDDS); conference proceedings; and patents and patent applications.  DTIC has identified 25 broad subject fields and 251 groups to categorize the areas of scientific and technical interest. These fields and groups provide the structure for the subject grouping of technical reports in DTIC's collection and are used to define the areas of need-to-know in distributing these reports.

U.S. Geological Survey Books and Other Publications Online

A limited number of publications in the various USGS formal and informal report series are available on the Internet.  First select the individual series to view a list of titles.

Wright Air Development Center Collection (Paul V. Gavin Library, Illinois Institute of Technology)

This site is a permanent Digital Repository for technical reports issued by the Wright Air Development Center/Wright Air Development Division throughout the 1950s and 1960s as part of the "race for space."