TIB - Technische Informationsbibliothek

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(s), and which is not available through booksellers. Foreign research reports are produced by research institutes both within and outside of institutions of higher education, and by companies. The contractors/funders of these reports include government agencies (Ministries, technical bodies), 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 the library's holdings.

What foreign research reports are included in our holding?

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 holdings each year. A full presentation of these holdings 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.
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 / NASA databases are also held by the TIB. Since these stocks are only partially shown in GetInfo, it is frequently necessary to check under the report number/order number in the stack 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 institutions of research and higher education, as well as the European Union's EUR Reports. Again, not all of the reports in our holdings have been recorded in the catalogues.

A selection of important reports series has been compiled in an Overview, with the aim of providing an overview of our existing holdings to libraries and any other interested parties, who frequently have dealings with this genre.   

How do I get hold of the reports I want?

Since only a part of these holdings is shown 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 models can be obtained by TIB 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 taken out on loan. However, the vast majority of the reports are only available as microfiches, from which duplicates can be made and supplied. On request, and for an additional charge, we can also produce DIN A4 paper enlargements.

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 holdings, the TIB 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.

Should you have any questions on foreign research reports, please contact: 

Mr. Michael Müller-Kammin (Dipl.-Geogr.)

German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB)
Postfach 6080, D-30060 Hannover
Telephone: +49 (0)511 / 762 - 17 853
Fax: +49 (0)511 / 762 - 40 76
E-mail: Michael.Mueller(at)tib.uni-hannover.de