Technical reports

Technical reports are scholarly papers issued by government labs, agencies, and universities. 

Reports on microfiche are kept at the Library Annex. However, we have equipment that can directly make a PDF file from a microfiche record. You can request a scanned copy from our interlibrary loan Be sure to specify exactly which report you need.

To locate microfiche, do a title search by the series name in the library catalog (for example, AD-microfom, PB-microform, NACA-microform). A few records may also link to URLs with full text.

You can also contact the Engineering Library with questions by email,

For certain "lost" technical reports from the 1940s and 1950s, there is a paper published by the University of Nebraska here. Many of these reports are not available from the NTIS or other sources but methods for obtaining them via the Library of Congress can be found within that paper.

Table Guide to Technical Report Holdings

Government Agency, Lab, or Society

Agency, Lab, or Society Report Number Prefixes (filed under)

Coverage, content

Major databases, full text

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aerospace Research Central

AIAA-

1963 - present

Aerospace Research Central Conference proceedings, papers (1963 to the present) and journals (various dates) from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

ASME (American Society for Mechanical Engineers)

Example: 96-WA-7
(year-division-paper number)

IMECE2004-62208
(division-year-paper number)

1946+

Several possibilities:

Department of Defense (DOD)technical reports, military standards, specifications

AD-, ADA-  (Note: AD- and ADA- technical reports often have 7 digits in citations. But only 6 are printed on the reports themselves. Give only the first 6 digits to the Library Annex).

1978+

DTIC Online

NTIS (1945+) - If a report is not available through NTIS, check our catalog to see if we have it.

Department of Energy (DOE)

AEC- Atomic Energy Commission BNL- Brookhaven National Lab
DOE - Dept. of Energy
LBL- Lawrence Berkeley Lab
LA-UR - Los Alamos National Lab
ORNL - Oak Ridge National Lab
SAND - Sandia National Lab
UCRL - Lawrence Livermore Lab

1947+ in microcard, paper, fiche1996+ only online

OSTI Office of Scientific and Technical Information  - If a report is not available, check our catalog to see if we have it.

Pages - Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science - free access to published scientific journal articles or accepted manuscripts within 12 months of publication.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Technical Report Server covers 1917 to present. Common acronyms: 
NACA - National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics
NASA CR - contractor report
NASA TM - technical memorandum
NASA NIX - Image Exchange
NASA STI - Scientific and Technical Information Program
NASA SP - series publication

1917+

NASA Technical Report Server The NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) provides publicly available documents. The NASA Aeronautics and Space Database (NA&SD) is another database and available only for registered users.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

  

NERL is transforming energy through research, development, commercialization, and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

NERL.ORG, also available from osti.gov

National Technical Reports Library (NTRL)

Accessible via this catalog record.

One of world's largest repositories of U.S. Government-sponsored research results, the National Technical Reports Library (NTRL Public) offers 2.2 million titles, with links to over 800,000 corresponding digitized full-text technical reports.

National Technical Reports Library

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

PB- ((Note: PB- technical reports often have 7 digits in citations. But only 6 are printed on the reports themselves. Give only the first 6 digits to the Library Annex).

1978+ in microfiche, earlier years in print, check in Library Catalog under EPA followed by first 3 digits of report number, such as EPA 600, EPA 440, etc.

NTIS (1945+) -  and EPA.GOV. Also, check our catalog by title.

Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Papers

960664, 2000-01-1003

  

We have a subscription to SAE Mobilus online, which includes SAE technical papers from 1906 to the present. Try this first.

We have SAE technical papers in hardcopy or microfiche, as follows:

In addition, SAE J-series ground vehicle standards are located in the SAE Handbook. The print set (2005) is located on the first floor of Olin Library, TL 151 .S67. A CD dated 2009 is in the Engineering Librarian's office. Contact engrref@cornell.edu for an email of a particular standard.

Technical Report Archive and Image Library (TRAIL) - The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.

Variety of agencies and departments.

    

U.S. Geological Survey Open File Reports

USGS OFR

1978+

Georef (1785+)

Many departments, including Commerce, Energy, Interior, Defense, EPA, etc.

C- Commerce, E- Energy
I- Interior, D- Defense
EP, EPA - EPA, T-Transportation
Y -Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Some documents arrive with SUDOC numbers only. These are Superintendent Document numbers and found in the Government Monthly Catalog.

Monthly Catalog (pre 1976)

GPO Monthly Catalog (1976+)

Others (distributed by the National Technical Information Service)

PB-

  

NTIS (1945+) - If a report is not available through NTIS, check our catalog to see if we have it.

 

Locating Technical Reports at the Engineering Library 

NTIS: the National Technical Information Service has provided access to government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related reports. Reports are filed under their report number, such as PB- (from NTIS), N, NASA (from NASA), AD- (from Department of Defence), and USGS (from U.S. Geological Survey). See the chart for a more detailed list.For declassified documents, check 'Declassified Documents Reference System'. Some of our reports back as far as 1942. More complete holdings start in 1978, when Cornell began subscribing as a depository library for NTIS reports. 


Technical Report Servers at Universities

  • Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library (NCSTRL) is a collection of CS technical reports on distributed servers from 157 institutions. Most of the institutions are Ph.D.-granting universities in the field of computer science. Cornell computer science reports dating back more than 30 years are included.
  • TRAIL - technicalreports.org - pre-1975 federal technical reports; information at http://www.crl.edu/grn/trail, developed by University of Washington.
  • Unified Computer Science TR Index. This is an automatically created index of technical reports available by anonymous FTP all over the Internet. Coverage is much broader than the CS-TR collection above.

Technical Reports from Government Sources 

While only some of these sites have the full-text documents, all are excellent for purposes of verification.