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About NTIS/DARTS

Go to NTIS/DARTS

The following quick-start guide has been created for CSUN students and researchers.

Jump to: Access & Requirements | Searching | Results | Related Resources

Description

Scope

The NTIS/DARTS (National Technical Information Service / Depository Access to Reports, Technical and Scientific) database has the full text of approximately 240,000 U.S. government scientific and technical reports, dating from 1964 to 2000, available as free downloadable PDF files. These include documents from the Department of Energy (DOE), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), and NTIS itself.

Coverage

Top ten subject areas covered in NTIS database, by percentage:

• 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.

Access and Software Requirements

Access Restrictions

CSUN is able to offer this database because Oviatt Library has been designated by a member of Congress as a Federal Depository Library. NTIS/DARTS is available to the general public when used in the Oviatt Library. Remote access is limited to CSUN students, staff, and faculty only.

Use Restrictions

1. Downloading of full text materials from the NTIS/DARTS database for commercial purposes or redistribution to other organizations is prohibited.
2. NTIS will terminate a user session if more than 10 publications are downloaded in one minute.
3. Interlibrary loan of full text documents from the NTIS/DARTS database is authorized only if the requesting library is another federal depository library.

Software Requirements

Downloadable reports are in Portable Document Format (PDF) and require Adobe Reader.

Searching

Instructions

1. Ignore this personalized greeting ("welcomeback, mfinley"). It is a side effect of the automatic login process.
2. Use the pull down menu to select your search option:
   • Keyword: Type a word in the search box to locate a result based on document keywords.
   • Title: Type the document title.
   • Abstract: Type a word or two pertaining to the summary description of the document.
   • Author: Type the name of the document's author.
   • All: Include all the above parameters. Include any combination of words. Please note that searching for general words, i.e. "country" will always yield a greater quantity of documents.
3. Type your search terms in the text box. Boolean operators (e.g. AND, OR, NOT) do not affect the search, so just enter a string of keywords for best results.

Results

Interpreting Results

1. Ignore the message stating how many records were found (e.g, "10 records found"). This only indicates the number of records displayed on the page. Look at the number of results pages at the bottom of the screen for a true gauge of quantity of results.
2. Click the Download button to initiate download of document in PDF format.
3. Click the more details... link to show the document abstract, author and publication year.
4. Navigate between pages of results using the links at the bottom of the results list.

Related Online Resources

• NTIS public home page (NOTE: The public NTIS search interface offers more features, so it is possible to search for and identify relevant documents there. Once you have the complete bibliographic information for documents you want, log in to NTIS/DARTS to find out if free access to those documents is allowed.)
• Adobe Reader (required for viewing all documents from NTIS/DARTS database)