Technical Reports

ACRL National Conference
March 29 - April 1, 2007
The Sheridan Libraries join the Baltimore library community in welcoming librarians and leaders in higher education to the 13th national Association of College and Research Libraries conference in Charm City.
National leaders will discuss issues such as interactive gaming and social networking technology in libraries. MORE...

Archives

Library Dean Wins American Library Association Award

Photo of a librarian helping students with research.

Connect to library resources from home

Check out a book

Find items located in MSEL

View my borrowing record

Learn to use the library

Get a study carrel

Get a group study room

Suggest a purchase for the Libraries collection

Cite sources correctly

Set up search alerts in my subject area(s)

Libraries Service Center Request

InterLibrary Services Request

Eisenhower Express Request

Library Network Help Request Form

MSE Library Faculty Study Network Activation Form

Submit a Reserve Item

Overview

News & Events

Additional JHU Libraries

Internet Acceptable Use Policy

Faculty

Graduate Students

Undergraduate Students

Alumni

Visitors

Gateway to Knowledge Campaign

The Friends of the Libraries

Ways of Giving

Home > Research Help > Engineering > Technical Reports

Printer-friendly Version

Photo: L. Mengel

Finding Technical Reports for Science and Engineering Research

A technical report is "an important means of communication for recording...the activities and the results of progress and research in...science and technology. ...Once reports were simply the reporting of government-sponsored research, [but now] they are...used as a means of communicating information for technical development throughout the world." [Report Series Codes Dictionary, 3rd edition, 1986]

Listed below are sources for either citations for or the full text of technical reports.

NTIS (National Technical Information Service)

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is responsible for storing and disseminating technical reports generated from U.S. government-sponsored work.

NTIS reports can be searched in two ways:

1. You can search NTIS's site for a citation from 1990 to the present. The full text is available for reports of 10 pages or fewer, and some full text is available for reports of 20 pages or fewer.

2. You can search from 1982 to the present on the library's version of the NTIS database (as shown to the left).

Government Publications Library, A Level

Ask at the reference desk to have an NTIS report ordered for you. This service is free of charge. (410-516-8360)

Virtual Technical Reports Center

This site is maintained by the University of Maryland. (Beware: many of these links are inactive.)

U.S. Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI)

OSTI is responsible for leading DOE's Technical Information Management Program (TIMP) and for helping to disseminate scientific and technical information resulting from DOE research and development programs.

MAGiC

MAGiC (Managing Access to Grey Literature Collections) gives links to tech report sites in the US, UK, and elsewhere. (This site is managed by Cranfield University in Bedfordshire, UK.)

Los Alamos Technical Reports site

In 2002, the Los Alamos National Laboratory terminated public access to thousands of unclassified reports on nuclear science and technology. Almost all of the withdrawn reports were acquired and preserved in the public domain; this site is sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists.

Need Help?

Contact your departmental librarian