Associations and Societies
Journal Articles
Conference Proceedings
Technical Reports
Standards
Patents
Handbooks and Directories
Click to go to Engineering Reference Manual
Most technical reports in Engineering are produced by the federal and state governments as well as by universities. These reports document the detailed results and findings in, largely quantitative measure, research and experiments in the industry. They document both the successes as well as failures of any specific experiment or project. The University of Washington houses three types of technical reports. Those produced by:
The technical reports produced by the government are generated by the departments of Energy, Aeronautics, Transportation, Environment, and Defense.
The most difficult thing about technical reports is their (in)accessibility. While the library houses three significant collections, it is not an easy task to find a particular one for several reasons. Some of the reasons for this difficulty are inaccurate or incomplete citations, lack of uniformity or standards for designating and cataloging,that is, technical reports produced by various entities will have their own scheme of designations. For example, one set of reports might be identified by a report number while another is identified by a grant number and yet another is identified by a contract or accession number.
Finally, one of the most challenging aspects of this collection is that technical reports come in a variety of formats, and they are not even necessarily consistent even among one series of reports! They come in print, microform, and electronic. Sometimes, the particular items in a series will be in more than one format, and just like standards, they are not catalogued, which makes them that much more difficult to finds!