The “Lost” U.S. Technical Reports: Obtaining Reports from the 1940s and ‘50s

Authors

Robert L. Bolin, University of Nebraska--LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

July 1999

Comments

Published in Journal of Government Information 26:5 (1999), pp. 501–508. Copyright © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13520237 Used by permission.

Abstract

Although centralized distribution of U.S. government technical reports began in 1946, the reports distributed by predecessors of the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) for the first 15 years are now effectively “lost.” They are not available from NTIS, and they are not listed in the NTIS bibliographic database. Those reports are available from the Photoduplication Service of the Library of Congress, and many are available from other sources as well. This article describes bibliographic tools and resources available to identify those reports and provides advice on how to obtain them at a reasonable price.