Start Here
OSTI.gov - Office of Scientific and Technical Information
DTIC.mil - Defense Technical Information Center
Regulations.gov - EPA, other regulatory agencies
NTRL.ntis.gov - National Technical Report Library
Finding technical reports can be hard - don't hesitate to ask engrref@cornell.edu for help.
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
|
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 OnlineNTIS (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
|
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:
|
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
|
Some documents arrive with SUDOC numbers only. These are Superintendent Document numbers and found in the Government Monthly Catalog. |
Monthly Catalog (pre 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
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.
-
Department of Agriculture - Water and Agriculture Information Center - Electronic access to information about water and agriculture.
-
Army Corps of Engineers - official publications office.
- Department of Energy, OSTI: Full-text reports on energy, environment and related topics. Combines the functionality and content of the older DOE/OSTI Information Bridge (1996-present) and the Energy Citations Database.
- Department of Defense Technical Information Center: Unclassified limited full-text documents.
- EPA: National Service Center for Environmental Publications: This site simplifies finding EPA publications. Users can search by document number, title, or keyword. Search returns include a brief abstract, URL, and reference to document format (HTML or pdf) when available. The site also offers a Guide to EPA Publication Numbers and general information about EPA publications.