Grey (or Gray) literature encompasses information from various sectors such as government, academia, business, and industry, available in electronic and print formats outside commercial publishing control. This includes preprints, newsletters, white papers, working papers, reports, and more. While valuable, this information can be challenging to access and identify.
Technical reports are a subset of grey literature, detailing scientific or technical research progress or outcomes. Typically serving as accountability reports to funding bodies like the government or private industry, their publication and dissemination lack centralized coordination, making them especially difficult to find and obtain.
National Technical Reports Library (NTRL)
The National Technical Information Service acquires, indexes, abstracts, and archives the largest collection of U.S. government-sponsored technical reports in existence. The NTIS archives reports from the Departments of Defense, Energy, Transportation, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and other government agencies. Some full text available.
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Provides access to aerospace-related citations, full-text online documents, and images and videos. The types of information include: conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos – scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Publications
You can search, retrieve, and download EPA technical, scientific, and educational materials from this site – all free of charge!
Energy-related research sponsored by the Department of Energy and its predecessors. Consolidates content from Information Bridge and Energy Citations Database.