Civil & Environmental Engineering

When searching for technical reports in specific subject areas, keep in mind these tips:

• Not all subject areas have extensive collections of technical reports
  
• Try going to the web site of the principal professional society that deals with the subject to see if they maintain a collection of tech reports
  
• Check the departmental web pages for schools you know have strong programs in the subject area of interest to see what reports may exist there
• Use a good web search engine to search for tech reports; individual authors sometimes put copies of reports on their personal or other web pages

Technical report literature forms a significant portion of the information that engineers and scientists may find useful.  Even so, different disciplines place varying amounts of emphasis on technical report literature.  Some subject areas provide good indexes to this material while others may not.  Reports prepared at academic institutions may be well indexed within the institution but not generally known outside it.  And technical reports prepared by for-profit companies and organizations may be completely proprietary and remain essentially invisible to anyone outside the organization.

The resources below offer several ways to search for technical reports in a fairly comprehensive manner.