LibGuides: Marine Science: Technical Reports & Bulletins

What are Tech Reports?

Technical reports usually originate in federal government agencies, but may also come from academic institutions, state or foreign governments, and private firms and organizations. They contain results of research carried out in government labs or on government contracts or, in the case of private companies, for in-house, proprietary use. They are often cited in the literature using obscure report numbering systems or vague and incomplete references, and they can be quite difficult to verify and obtain. In past decades some libraries participated in large microfiche depository programs run by DOE and NTIS, but these were phased out after the 1990s. While thousands of legacy federal agency reports have been digitized in recent years by various parties, many older and non-federal reports that are held in libraries exist only in paper or microform, often with little or no cataloging or inventory. Many more have likely vanished altogether. Consult a librarian for assistance.

UT Austin

Marine Science Institute Technical Reports, in Texas ScholarWorks.

Mission-Aransas NERR Publications & Reports, in Texas ScholarWorks.

NOAA Resources

NOAA Professional Paper NMFS series - (replaced NOAA Technical Report NMFS series in 2003).

NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS F/SPO

NOAA Technical Report NMFS

Other Resources

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Publications. Browse & download directly from the FAO Document Repository.

National Service Center for Environmental Publications

NTRL: National Technical Reports Library from the National Technical Information Service This link opens in a new window
Free registration required. Unlimited users.
The National Technical Reports Library (NTRL) gives free public access to a searchable online database of approximately three million Federal science and technology reports published by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The full text for 800,000 of these documents can be downloaded immediately in electronic PDF format without charge. Free registration is required to download the reports. The remaining reports, most published before 1995 are gradually being added to the collection. Those not yet scanned may be requested via InterLibrary Services or purchased.
Contact the Subject Expert for this database for additional information or assistance.

Science.gov
Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2200 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.
Sea Grant in the Gulf of Mexico, Oil Spill Science Publications & Fact Sheets

Technical Report Archive and Image Library (TRAIL) This link opens in a new window
Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
TRAIL provides access to digitized copies of federal technical reports issued prior to 1975. Includes reports from agencies such as the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the National Bureau of Standards, and the U.S. Bureau of Mines. A complete list of the included series is available at http://www.crl.edu/grn/trail/current-activities/series-list.

Technical Reports & Standards (Library of Congress)
The TRS unit of the Library of Congress holds over 5 million current and historical technical reports and standards on microform, digital media and paper.
WHOI Technical Reports, Memoranda, and Unnumbered Reports
WorldWideScience.org
A global gateway resource similar to the U.S. Science.gov, co-sponsored by DOE-OSTI. Worth checking for foreign tech reports.

Bulletins

Contributions in Marine Science (formerly the Publications of the Institute of Marine Science) - digital collection, v. 12-38, 1967-2009.

NLM Technical Bulletin - National Library of Medicine | National Institutes of Health.

Technical reports can be kind of tricky and sometimes difficult to find.
Sometimes they are often referred to as grey literature.

Comptes Rendus

Created in 1835 by the physicist François Arago, then Permanent Secretary, the journal Comptes Rendus of the French Academy of sciences allows researchers to quickly make their work known to the international scientific community.

It is divided into seven series covering the whole range of research fields in exact and applied sciences: Mathematics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Biology, Geoscience, Physics and Palevol. Each title is led by one or more editor(s)-in-chief, assisted by editorial boards. The articles submitted are reviewed by scientists with recognized competence in the field concerned.

Consult the website for more detailed information.

Marine Science

Technical Reports & Bulletins