National Technical Information Service - Government Documents - Department of Commerce - Research Guides at University of Hawaii at Manoa

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) was established in 1970. It "collects reports containing scientific, technical, and engineering information from both domestic and foreign sources in a repository and makes the information available to (1) business and industry, (2) state and local governments, (3) other federal agencies, and (4) the general public to increase U.S. competitiveness in the global economy" (Government Accountability Office). It superseded the Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information in the Dept. of Commerce. Its origins are with the Office of the Publication Board (later Office of Technical Services), created in 1946 to disseminate scientific and technical reports, including captured German documents from World War II.The Office of Technical Services was later placed under the Business and Defense Services Administration in the Department of Commerce. Among other things, it distributed translations of technical literature.

NTIS performs many functions for U.S. government agencies, such as web hosting, microfiching, scanning, document delivery, database management, and archiving and storage. In addition, the Federal Science Repository Service hosts documents, videos, images, and other data for federal agencies.

Books about NTIS:

Preliminary assessment of the proposed closure of the National Technical Information Service (NTIS): a report to the President and the Congress by United States National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
Call Number: GOVD Y 3.L 61:2 AS 7
Publication Date: 2000
Includes a chronology of events and bibliography about NTIS's position in the Department of Commerce.
Information management: dissemination of technical reports by U.S. General Accounting Office
Publication Date: 2001

If you've ever seen a reference to a report with a number that started with PB or AD, you've probably encountered a document that can be obtained from NTIS. If you were to order a document through the NTIS website, you would have to pay a fee to obtain a copy. What you may not realize is that our library has hundreds of thousands of these reports in print and microfiche, but they may not be listed in the Voyager catalog. Many more technical reports are available online for free in various repositories. The library can also obtain copies of these documents for you through interlibrary loan, and you don't have to pay NTIS's fee.

Government Documents holds a small collection of NTIS indexes and publications, including:

U.S. government research reports (C 51.9/3:) This index, prepared by the Defense Documentation Center, is a compilation of subject index entries from Technical abstract bulletins. It lists hundreds of thousands of technical reports produced by the armed services.

National Technical Reports Library (NTRL)
Search for technical reports available from NTIS covering 1964-present. Searching the database is free, but you have to create an account. The Government Documents Collection has copies of many of these reports, and we can obtain others through interlibrary loan.

The NTRL provides a limited search interface for federal research reports. A subscription database, NTIS Bibliographic Database, provides more robust search capabilities. Unfortunately, the UHM Library does not subscribe to this database.

Subject Guide

Gwen Sinclair

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Subjects: Government Documents

Government Documents - Department of Commerce: National Technical Information Service

Subject Guide