Technical reports communicate the progress of government-sponsored and privately-funded research in the fields of technology and science. They are often highly detailed and directed toward a specialized audience.
Identifying technical reports
Technical reports may be difficult to identify because there is no central coordination for dissemination and publication. The report series code, which is a series of letters and numbers assigned by the issuing agency, can be useful for identifying and finding technical reports.
Recommend sites for finding technical reports
Science.gov is an official website of the U.S. government, providing access to federally-funded scientific and technical reports, as well as peer-reviewed publications, digital data, software, conference presentations and proceedings, and other scientific and technical information. Science.gov uses a search technology that retrieves results in real-time, ensuring that the most recent content is available for search and retrieval.
TRAIL (Technical Report Archive and Image Library)
The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) contains digitized U.S. government agency technical reports, primarily issued prior to 1976. Material is from a number of current and former United States government agencies, including report series from the Atomic Energy Commission, Bureau of Mines, National Bureau of Standards, and National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. See the full listing on TRAIL.
WorldWideScience.org
Also includes the information within Science.gov (listed above) and is a gateway to national and international scientific databases. You can search resources from 17 countries.