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Information About National Technical Information Service (NTIS)'s
Depository Access to Reports, Technical and Scientific (DARTS) database |
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Provided by UW-Madison's Memorial Library, regional depository library for Wisconsin.
For questions about federal depository library issues, or reference questions regarding government documents at Memorial Library, please contact the government documents reference librarian, Beth Harper (608/262-9852; email link).
Overview | Signing up for DARTS | Using DARTS | Other resources for technical reports
Overview
What is it? A pilot project providing federal depository libraries with free access to a database containing full text (in PDF format) of a small percentage (about 240,000 titles) of technical reports from 1964-2000 published by National Technical Information Service (NTIS).
What are technical reports? Technical reports are produced by laboratories, university departments, consultants, or government agencies to report on research conducted under contract. DARTS contains technical reports produced under contract to U.S. government agencies.
Subject areas covered by technical reports: mostly scientific and technical, but some social sciences and history.
According to DARTS' Frequently Asked Questions section (available only once you log in to DARTS), the subject breakdown in the database is:
| Physics (16%) |
Environmental pollution and control (13%) |
Nuclear science and technology (13%) |
Medicine and biology (11%) |
Energy (8%) |
Chemistry (7%) |
Materials science (7%) |
Natural resources and earth sciences (6%) |
Computers and information theory (5%) |
| Behavior and society (7%) - includes psychology, education, law and sociology, and international relations |
Signing up for DARTS
Form that federal depository libraries must complete to sign up for the service: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/coll-dev/ntisform.pdf
DARTS home page: http://www.ntis.gov/fdlp
Restrictions
- Only available to federal depository libraries.
- Login information is for library staff only and should not be given to patrons.
- Access by simultaneous users is supported but limited to a maximum of 30 workstations.
- Branch libraries can participate in the trial. Depository coordinator must be the primary point of contact for any branch libraries that may be participating in the pilot.
- You canNOT allow rganizations outside your library to connect to DARTS using your account and password via your library's computer network.
- Reports are not intended to be downloaded for additional distribution outside of your library users and the FDLP community.
- A user session will be terminated if more than 10 publications are downloaded in one minute. Library staff must log patrons in.
- A library can lend other federal depository libraries documents obtained through DARTS. (But if you were a federal depository library, you could get access to the DARTS trial anyway...)
Using DARTS--Search tips
- DARTS automatically connects terms with "AND."
- Haven't been able to use "OR" in searches.
- Haven't been able to figure out how search for phrases (quotes do NOT work).
- Truncation symbol is asterisk ( * )
- Can search the following fields:
- All (most comprehensive)
- Keyword ("all" and "keyword" searches produce results lists that overlap, but not completely)
- Title
- Abstract
- Author (not all bibliographic records include authors)
- Can search by NTIS report number: enter the report number in the search box, and search "all" fields
- You canNOT select bibliographic records for printing, emailing, or downloading.
It's a pilot project! Please feel free to email NTIS (fdlp@ntis.gov) with your suggestions and comments!
Other resources for technical reports
Information for Federal Depository Libraries in Wisconsin | Government Documents at Memorial Library
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Memorial Library Home Page | UW-Madison Libraries
Page created 7/30/07; last updated 7/31/07.
Created and maintained by:
Beth Harper
Government Documents Reference Librarian
276 Memorial Library
728 State St, Madison, WI 53706
(608) 262-9852