Foreign Research Reports

What are foreign research reports?
The term "foreign research report" refers to any research report published outside Germany, which presents the results, current status or progress of a research project, and which is not available through booksellers. Foreign research reports are produced by research institutes both within and outside universities/colleges and by companies. The ordering parties/funders of these reports include public agencies (Ministries, technical authorities), international organisations (e.g. the European Union, UN subsidiary organisations), institutions involved in research funding, and companies. Foreign research reports, which are confidential, secret, or for internal use only, are not made available and are therefore not incorporated in libraries’ collections.

What foreign research reports are included in our collections?
The TIB has a large stock of foreign research reports, the scope of which has been significantly enlarged through the integration of the foreign research reports held by the library of the Karlsruhe-based FIZ, in the form of 1.7 million microfiches. The collection maintains a particular focus on American research reports, which are distributed by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) of the US Department of Commerce, involving the addition of more than 20.000 microfiche-format reports to the TIB's collections each year. A full presentation of these collections from 1964 is only available through the NTIS database, which is accessible through various providers, including STN and DIALOG, for example. Records of items are also available on the Internet for free: Search NTIS.
RSS feeds of major subject categories can be subscribed to inform you about recently catalogued materials by NTIS.
 
Furthermore, most of the reports shown in the Nuclear Science Abstracts, Energy Database, INIS  and Aerospace respectively NASA  databases are also held by the TIB/UB. Since these stocks are only partially shown in the catalogue of the TIB/UB and in GetInfo, and are not shown at all in the joint data banks, it is frequently necessary to check under the report number/order number in the storage location to ascertain whether the requested report is actually held by the library.
 
In addition, the library also holds further important stocks from a large number of European and non-European research institutions and university/college institutions, as well as the European Union's EUR-Reports. Again, not all of the reports available have been recorded in the catalogues by title.
 
A selection of important reports series has been compiled in an Overview , with the aim of providing a summary of our existing collections to libraries and any other interested parties, who frequently have dealings with this literary genre.

How do I get hold of the reports I want?
Since only a part of these collections is shown in the  catalogue of the TIB/UB and in GetInfo (the document delivery service) , we recommend that you try placing an order, even if a search of the catalogues has not produced any results. Detailed information on ordering methods and procedures can be obtained through our customer service. Please include all the information from the source where the report was cited. To ensure your order is filled quickly, it is particularly important to include the report number(s), as well as the so-called "NTIS Order No" (where applicable), which generally starts with "AD-", "DE-", "N-", "NUREG-", or "PB-".
 
Any reports available in a printed format may be borrowed. However, the vast majority of the reports are only available as microfiches, from which duplicates can be made and supplied or electronic reports are made available.
 
In cases where a report is not available in our stock, but is available on the Internet in a full-text version, we shall inform you of the corresponding Internet address. For a guide to institutions, whose reports are available in full-text versions, please go to The Virtual Technical Reports Center.
 
Should a report not be available in the library, we will endeavour to acquire it, on condition that a reference address can be provided, and that the attempt to acquire it would seem to have a reasonable chance of success.