Return to Guides & Tutorials
What is a technical report?
Technical reports are produced by laboratories, university departments, consultants, or government agencies to report on research conducted under contract. Most technical reports housed in the Wendt Library Technical Reports Center (TRC) were produced under contract to U.S. government agencies.
Wendt's Technical Reports Center
- Contains technical reports and selected U.S. government documents received through the GPO depository library program.
- Over 1.8 million documents in microform format and nearly 184,000 paper documents
- On Wendt Library's 3rd floor
- Most documents and reports can be checked out
- Reports are arranged in integrated alpha-numeric
order by technical report/accession/SuDoc number. Here's
an example:
C55.214:
CONF-9303108
COO-4076-2 - You should start your search for a specific technical report in MadCat, BUT
- ...since less than 10% of the collection is represented in MadCat, also search in the various technical reports databases
- Finding technical reports can be tricky! For some tips, go to the Technical Reports section on the How to Find page
- If you need help, don't hesitate to contact us!. If you're on the 3rd floor, ask a librarian in room 313 or 317.
Who generated all the reports in the TRC?
- Army Corps of Engineers
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)and its predecessor National Bureau of Standards (NBS)
- National Oceanic and Space Administration (NOAA)
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and its predecessor Atomic Energy Comission (AEC)
- Patent and Trademark Office (PTO)
- Department of Transportation (DOT)
- Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) technical papers from 1965-2002
- Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
I found a report on microfiche - where can I print it?
Microformat readers and a reader/printer/scanner are available. See Computers and Scanners.