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Michigan State University

Free Engineering Information Resources

Government Publications

Some of these resources also contain citations to non-government publications.  There is some overlap in the coverage of these resources.

Science.gov  Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information including research and development results. Search results sometimes contain citations to nongovernment publications.

The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL)  The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.  TRAIL currently consists of over three dozen member institutions whose annual membership fees and volunteered staff time further the efforts of the project.

Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP)  The CGP is the finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive information for historical and current publications as well as direct links to the full document, when available. Users can search by authoring agency, title, subject, and general keywords, or click on "Advanced Search" for more options. 

MetaLib GPO    MetaLib is a federated search engine that searches multiple U.S. Federal government databases, retrieving reports, articles, and citations while providing direct links to selected resources available online. To learn more, view additional brief or detailed search information." Not all citations found in a search will link to the full-text of a document. Resources searched include: Access to Archival Databases (AAD) Systems-NARA, AGRICOLA Books, AUL Index to Military Periodicals, Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, EPA Publications and Newsletters, govinfo, Library of Congress(LOC), PubMed, and U.S.A.gov.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)  NIST's mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.

Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)  DTIC is run by the Department of Defense.  "DTIC's mission is "to aggregate and fuse science and technology data to rapidly, accurately and reliably deliver the knowledge needed to develop the next generation of technologies to support our Warfighters and help assure national security."

National Technical Report Library (NTRL) NTRL is a repository of U.S government research reports.

NASA Technical Report Server  "Provides access to aerospace-related citations, full-text online documents, images, and videos. The types of information included are: conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos – scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA.  The NTRS integrates the following three NASA collections and enables search and retrieval through a common interface:

NACA Collection: Citations and reports from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics lasting from 1915 to 1958 with information dating back to 1900.

NASA Collection:  Citations and documents created or sponsored by NASA in 1958 and continuing to the  present.

NIX Collections: Citations and links to the images, photos and movies once contained in the NASA Image eXhange as well as other collections curated by NASA and its various center.

OSTI.GOV  "OSTI. GOV is the primary search tool for DOE science, technology, and engineering research and development results and the organizational hub for information about the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information.  It consolidates OSTI’s home page and our now retired primary search tool SciTech Connect.  OSTI.GOV makes discoverable over 70 years of research results from DOE and its predecessor agencies.  Research results include journal articles/accepted manuscripts and related metadata; technical reports; scientific research datasets and collections; scientific software; patents; conference and workshop papers; books and theses; and multimedia.  OSTI.GOV contains over 3 million records, including citations to 1.5 million journal articles, 1 million of which have digital object identifiers (DOIs) linking to full-text articles on publishers' websites."