Engineering

Technical Reports are part of Gray Literature or "Grey Literature."

Their main characteristics are:

• Numbered report series
• Published by government agencies, university departments and companies
• Describe unsuccessful as well as successful research
• Not peer-reviewed
• First place a development or innovation is reported
• Increasingly available online only
• Rich with technical information

TRAIL Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) is an initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with CRL and other interested agencies to identify, digitize, archive, and provide access to federal technical reports issued prior to 1975.  

Virtual Technical Reports Collections (University of Maryland Libraries provides links to full-text or searchable extended abstracts of technical reports, preprints, reprints, dissertations, theses, and research reports in all disciplines.