UCB Libraries

Introduction

This page describes how to search for and locate technical reports from the National Technical Information Service, or NTIS, using Engineering Village, the National Technical Research Library or (NTRL) and the Government Information Library at CU.

The NTIS database includes citations for reports published by government agencies or as a result of government-funded research. These reports relate to a broad range of subjects in science, technology, and business.

Affiliates of CU have access to the large majority of these reports either through the National Technical Reports Library (NTRL) database or through the Government Information Library, but the process for locating these reports can be very confusing! This page is designed to walk you through this process and help you locate NTIS materials quickly and efficiently. If you prefer, a video tutorial detailing the steps for locating technical reports is available at the right.

To search for and access Technical Reports through NTIS, you will need to do the following:

1. Search the NTIS database for citations related to your topic
2. After identifying citations related to your topic in NTIS, search for your selected citations in the NTRL database to access technical reports available online through the library.
3. If the reports you located in NTIS are not available online through NTRL, contact the Government Information Library

Let’s say you are looking for government information related to the weathering process of oil pollution in water, start by using the NTIS database. To begin, go to the library’s homepage at http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu. If you are off campus, don't forget to turn on your VPN, so that you are able to access the Libraries' subscription resources outside the university.

In the middle of your screen, you will see a search box for Chinook, but you can also search for databases, books on reserve, and research guides in this box. Since we need to access the NTIS database, click on the tab above the search box labeled “Articles”. A list of search and browse options will be revealed. Click on the link to “Search for a database title”.

When your page loads, you will find a box at the bottom left side of the page titled “Search for a particular database by title”. Type “NTIS” into the search box. Click “search”.

A page in the library catalog will appear. Click on the first result titled “NTIS”. The next page will show a description of the database. Next the red heading “connect to online resource” click on the link to “NTIS”.

Ok, so this will probably look a bit confusing, because you will end up in a database called Engineering Village, despite the fact that you clicked on the link to the NTIS database. Engineering Village is a giant database that searches three sub-databases related to engineering, physics, computer science, and other technical fields. NTIS is one of these sub-database. By default, Engineering Village will search all three databases. Since you are specifically looking for government reports, we only want to search NTIS. To limit your search, uncheck the boxes at the top of the page labeled “Compendex”, and “Inspec”, but keep “NTIS” checked.

Let's search for the terms weathering process, water pollution, and oil. In the first search field, type the term “weathering process*”. You should include the * symbol at the end of the term “process” to indicate that you want to search for the root term “Process” and all ending variations of this word, such as "processes" or "processing".

In the second search field, type “water pollut*”

And finally in the third field type in “oil*”

Click on the yellow search button to run your search.

Your search will return around 42 results, all of which will be citations to government technical reports. Keep this list of results open in your browser as you will need to refer to it later.

To find the full text for one of these reports, you will need to search the NTRL database or visit the Government Information Library. To search for a specific report contained within your search results, click on the "Detailed" link below the result. You will see the full citation information for the record. Note the number in the first field title "Accession Number"; you will need this number for your search of the NTRL database. See Search Example II.

To access the NTRL database, follow the same steps used to access NTIS:

1. Open the University Libraries' Website at http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/.
2. Click on the "Articles" tab above the search box.
   
   
   
   
3. Click on the link to “Search for a database title”.
4. When your page loads, you will find a box at the bottom left side of the page titled “Search for a particular database by title”. Type “NTRL” into the search box. Click “search”. Click on the link to open the NTRL database.

For the sake of this search example, we will use the following citations included in the list of results from Part I:

1. Development of a Computer Model for Calculating the Spreading and Weathering of an Oil Spill. A Tool for Prevention of Oil Spills and Clean-Up Operations. 203p (1986). Accession Number: DE87751070.
2. Bobra, M. Study of the evaporation of petroleum oils. 148p (1992). Accession Number: PB93126852.

Let's start with the first citation: Development of a Computer Model for Calculating the Spreading and Weathering of an Oil Spill. There are a few ways we can search for this item in the NTRL database. The easiest way is to copy the item’s accession number, the first field listed on the full record of the report in NTIS. This number is a unique identifier to each report, and often starts with DE or PB. The accession number for this report (listed in the detailed record from NTIS in Part I) is DE87751070.

In the NTRL database, click the large, green “search” button, and on the search screen, paste the Accession number into the text box and select Search.

THEN. . .

Hmmm. What are we seeing here? The report is listed, but there’s no link to the full-text here and clicking on the button to “view product detail” only leads to the record of the item. But this is a report we really want to read, so we’re going to need to get access to it somehow.

For now, we can save the citation and accession number and later we’ll take this to the Government Information department to get their help.

Let’s see if we can find the second title in the NTRL database: Adaptation of the Minerals Management Service's Oil-Weathering Model for Use in the Gulf of Mexico Region.

Again, follow the same procedure you used before, copying the Accession Number of the item from your NTIS page (PB93126852) and then paste and search for that number in the NTRL database.

You will see that NTRL has this report in full-text online. We can download it and read the report in full.

But you still want to get that first article. It sounds great and very relevant to our topic. It is possible that the Government Information Library owns a print copy of this article. To learn how to access their print collections, see Part III below.

The Government Information department in Norlin Library has an extensive selection of NTIS reports in its microfiche collection. While the microfiche format means that the texts are not available digitally, Norlin library has equipment available for use to either print paper copies of microfiche materials, or to create your own digital PDF of an NTIS report.

To get help with this process, simply bring a printout of an NTIS report’s Detailed Record, which can be printed from the NTIS Database via Engineering Village, to the Government Information department located on the third floor of Norlin library. Your detailed record will look something like this:

The librarians and staff there will pull the fiche from the collection for you to read, print, or digitize. The Government Information Department can be found on the third floor of the Norlin Library.