The Arts & Sciences Libraries (ASL) at the University at Buffalo has a collection of over 1.5 million technical reports, with major holdings of reports by DOE, NASA, EPA, and their contractors. Most of the reports are on microfiche and are shelved in fiche cabinets located in the Multimedia & Map Center on the 2nd floor of Capen Hall. Reports on microfiche are filed either by technical report number (e.g., BNL-25708, NASA-CR-182000), NTIS accession number (e.g., AD-678750 or PB-182571), or SuDocs number (e.g., I 19.76:91-500).

To determine if we have a particular technical report, begin by searching the UB Libraries' catalog, BISON. Technical reports are cataloged in BISON either individually or serially (meaning that there is a single serial record describing the series as a whole with detailed volume holdings information noted telling you exactly which volumes, or paper numbers, we own).

If a report is not listed in BISON, it does not mean we do not own it. Other tools that can be used to identify and locate technical reports include a number of electronic databases and print indexes, including the NTIS Database (see below) and the Dictionary of Report Series Codes (UGL/SEL REF Z 6945 A2 S6 1973) and Report Series Codes Dictionary (UGL/SEL REF Z 6945 A2 R45 1986), which can be used to identify the issuing agency or organization of a report when you know only the technical report number.

If we do not own a report, you may fill out an InterLibrary Loan request and we will either borrow the report from another library or purchase it for our collection for your use. Please consult a reference librarian at the UGL/SEL Reference Desk on the 1st floor of Capen Hall for help with identifying and locating technical reports or via email at library@buffalo.edu.

Microfiche readers/printers are available on the second floor of Capen Hall in the Science & Engineering Library for viewing the reports.

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NTIS
NTIS (National Technical Information Service) is a self-supporting agency whose mission is the indexing and selling of technical reports and other literature, most often produced as a result of U.S. government-sponsored research and development. The NTIS Database is the major indexing source for reports handled by NTIS. UB has access to the NTIS Database for the years 1964-present. The database provides citations to reports on government-sponsored R+D in the physical sciences, technology, engineering, biological sciences, medicine and health sciences, agriculture, and social sciences. The print version, titled Government Reports Announcements & Index (GRA&I) , can be searched for information on reports published prior to 1964. GRA&I is shelved on the 2nd floor of Capen (CMMC Z 7916 G78); it ceased publication in 1996.

Because UB is a federal depository library, we have special access to approximately 240,000 digitized, full-text reports from 1964-2000 via the NTIS DARTS (Depository Access to Reports, Technical & Scientific) web site. These reports represent about 11% of the total number of NTIS reports available for this time period. Since the DARTS datbase is password protected, your subject librarian or reference desk staff can search the database for you to see if a needed report is available for free from DARTS.

Catlog of United States Publications (formerly, Monthly Catalog)
The Catalog of United States Publications database is an index to US federal documents, primarily those distributed through the depository program. It includes citations to many technical reports. Coverage is for the years 1976-present. We own many of the technical reports indexed by the Monthly Catalog.

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VIRTUAL TECH REPORTS CENTER
The Virtual Technical Reports Center contains links to sites that provide access to either the full text or "searchable extended abstracts" of technical reports (and preprints, reprints, dissertations, theses, and research reports) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The site is hosted by the University Libraries at the University of Maryland and is updated monthly.

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DOE
Our collection includes a large number of Department of Energy (DOE) reports. These reports typically have technical report numbers beginning with "DOE," although reports produced under the sponsorship of the DOE national labs usually have their own report number prefix codes assigned to them ("BNL", for Brookhaven National Laboratory, for example). Indexing for these reports is available through the publicly available Energy Citations Database, which provides citations and abstracts to unclassified DOE and DOE-contractor reports on energy and energy-related topics spanning the fields of chemistry, physics, materials, environmental science, geology, engineering, mathematics, climatology, oceanography, and computer science for the years 1948-present. The DOE also provides the DOE Information Bridge, which includes the full-text of many DOE and DOE-contractor reports from 1995 to the present.

In addition, many of DOE's national research labs provide online access to information about their reports and, in some cases, the full text of the reports, see:

• Argonne National Laboratory Publications
  
• Brookhaven National Laboratory Publications
  
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Library Catalogs & Publications
  
• Los Alamos National Laboratory Reports Library
  
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory Technical Reports
  
• Sandia National Laboratory - Not available from their web site. Search the NTIS Database.

NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) issues numerous reports dealing not only with aeronautics and space, but with related aerospace aspects of earth resources, energy, and the environment. We have many of these reports in our collection, in both print and on microfiche. NASA reports on microfiche typically have report numbers beginning with "NASA." We have made a special effort to include NASA reports in BISON, the UB Libraries catalog. Search BISON to determine if we may own a NASA report. If you don't find it in BISON, ask for help at the SEL Reference Desk or via e-mail at library@buffalo.edu.

The most comprehensive index to NASA reports is the Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports ( STAR ). STAR is available and can be searched on the Internet from January 1996+. Earlier print issues of STAR are available in the SEL Reference Abstracts area at SEL ABS TL500 S35. NASA also provides an additional way of accessing technical reports through its NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). This site allows you to search in one place information about technical reports published by a number of NASA Research and Space Centers. The full-text of a few of the reports are also available at this site.

NASA's predecessor agency was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). This agency published documents from 1915-1960. SEL has a large collection of NACA reports in paper, which are shelved in the SEL Government Documents Collection on the 3rd floor of Capen under SuDocs numbers beginning with "Y3.N21/5:." The UB Libraries catalog, BISON, contains a record for each report series, e.g., NACA Wartime Reports, under the author "United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics." The individual reports are not cataloged. Use the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Server to search for citations to these documents.

DOD/DTIC
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) makes Department of Defense-related information available to government agencies and government contractors. Some UB researchers who are government contractors may have access to the full DTIC information network. The publicly available version, known as the Scientific and Technical Information Network (STINET), provides access to unclassified/unlimited technical reports published since 1974. Included in STINET are some full text DTIC reports.

EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produces many technical reports, typically with report numbers starting with "EPA." We have many of these reports in our collection. They are cataloged in BISON, the University Libraries catalog. You can also consult the EPA National Publications Catalog, which provides access to the titles of over 7,000 EPA publications available for distribution through the National Service Center for Environmental Publications & Information. In addition, the full text of over 10,000 selected EPA publications is available through EPA's EPA National Environmental Publications Information System (NEPIS). Both of these sources include technical reports.

NRC
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) publishes numerous technical reports. We have a large collection of these reports in both print and microfiche. NRC technical reports generally are shelved with report numbers beginning with "NUREG" or the SuDocs number "Y3.N88:." In addition, the full text of publicly available agency reports from 1999 to the present are available through NRC's web-based Agencywide Documents Access & Management System (ADAMS).

USGS
The US Geological Survey (USGS) distributes a wide variety of technical report literature, including the Open File Reports series. SEL obtains copies of most Open File Reports in microfiche. They are filed under I 19.76: in the SuDocs microfiche collection in the 2nd floor of Capen Hall. Records for USGS publication in SEL in both print and fiche are included in the UB Libraries catalog, BISON. The full text of selected USGS publications is available through the USGS Publications Warehouse. In addition, you can search the USGS Library' catalog online, which includes references to technical reports, through the USGS Library.

BOM
The United States Bureau of Mines (BOM) published significant research and statistics on the mining industry, minerals, safety, properties of compounds, and materials science from 1910 to its abolition in 1996. SEL has a number of these reports filed under the SuDoc number 'I 28' in both our microfiche and the print government documents collections. SEL also has a printed index to all their publications entitled "List of Bureau of Mines publications and articles ... with subject and author index" (SEL Book Collection TN23 .U6).

For reports not in our collection, a request can be submitted via ILLiad Interlibrary Loan. Alternately, any BOM publication can be ordered for a fee from NTIS, which maintains the entire collection of their publications, some 5,000 documents. For additional information about locating and ordering Bureau of Mines Publications, visit the NTIS Bureau of Mines web page.

MCEER
Technical reports produced by the UB Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) are listed individually in BISON and shelved in the SEL Book Collection on 3rd floor of Capen Hall under the call number TA654.6 .T423. MCEER maintains the QUAKELINE® database which contains bibliographic information on earthquakes, earthquake engineering, earthquake preparedness, natural hazards mitigation, and related topics. The database includes records for various publication types including technical reports published since 1987. An effort has been made to exclude from QUAKELINE® those items which are indexed by the NTIS, COMPENDEX, and GeoRef databases. All items in the QUAKELINE® database are available in either the UB Libraries collections or in the MCEER Information Service Office.

RAND
RAND is a nonprofit research organization that issues many reports regarding public policy issues, including science and technology related issues. Typical RAND report numbers include "P-7929" or "MR-615-RC. " The University Libraries include many of these reports in its collections. Most RAND reports are listed in the UB Libraries catalog, BISON. Search BISON to determine if we own an individual title. If you don't find it in BISON, ask for help at the UGL/SEL Reference Desk or via e-mail through askASL. The RAND Publications Database, which provides author, title, and subject access to these reports, is searchable online. A small number of full text RAND reports are available electronically.

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COMPUTER SCIENCE REPORTS
NCSTRL (Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library) is an "international collection of computer science technical reports from CS departments and industrial and government research laboratories." Over 100 sites, including UB, participate in this project. Many of the reports cited are available in full-text formats. Many computer science departments and research labs also maintain individual sites for their reports. The On-line CS Techreports site maintains links to 395 such individual sites worldwide.

SEL owns copies of many of the UB Department of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) reports in paper. These are listed in BISON and shelved in the SEL Book Collection on the 3rd floor under the call number: TK 7885 N 4 [year] [report no.]. In addition, CSE provides access to the full text of many of its reports online through the CSE website; to access these by year, go to Technical Reports at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo. CSE also participates in the NCSTRL project.

AIAA PAPERS
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) publishes approximately 3,500 papers each year, presented at at 20 to 30 technical conferences, on all aspects of aerospace engineering and science. SEL has a large collection of selected AIAA papers, primarily in fiche, spanning the years 1963-1996. The collection is not complete. AIAA papers on microfiche are shelved in the fiche cabinets on the 2nd floor of Capen Hall by AIAA report number, which takes the form AIAA-[yr]-[report no.]. You can use the AIAA Papers Citations Database online to identify AIAA papers on topics of interest for the years 1963 to the present. AIAA papers are also indexed in the International Aerospace Abstracts ; SEL has this index in print for the years 1985-1999 in the SEL Periodicals Collection on the 3rd floor of Capen Hall under the call number SEL Per TL500 .I57.

SAE PAPERS
The Society of Automotive Engineers publishes thousands of technical papers each year related to designing, building, maintaining, and operating land, sea, air, and space vehicles. SEL has a large collection of SAE technical papers, primarily in print (covering the years 1963-1990, with gaps), a few selected papers on microfiche, and the 1994 papers on CD-ROM. SAE papers are serially cataloged in BISON and shelved under the call number TL240 .S63 (in print in the 3rd floor SEL Book Collection, in fiche in the LC-classified fiche cabinets on the 2nd floor of Capen, and on CD-ROM loaded on a workstation in the UGL/SEL Reference area on the 1st floor of Capen Hall).

You can use the Advanced Search feature on the SAE website to search for SAE publications including technical papers. You can also search the following three print indexes: SAE Technical Literature Abstracts (UGL/SEL Reference T10.7 S6), 1979-1999; Annual Index/Abstracts of Technical Papers (UGL/SEL Reference T10.7 S62), 1994-1999; and Cumulative Index of SAE Technical Papers (UGL/SEL Reference T10.7 .S63), 1906-1993. SAE papers recently acquired from the Veridian Corporation have not yet been added to the collection; to access these, please ask for assistance at the UGL/SEL Reference Desk.

WESTERN NY TECHNICAL REPORT COLLECTIONS
In 1998, with grant support from the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC), SEL undertook the development of a Western New York Technical Reports website, which provides general information about technical reports along with a directory of technical reports collections in the area. The site also includes the full text of selected individual reports on topics of local interest including brownfields, zebra mussels, and Love Canal.

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