The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce has announced the launch of the next generation National Technical Reports Library Version 3.0, also known as NTRL V3.0.

The NTRL V3.0 is now publicly available after two years of research and development. Through the utilisation of the open-source platform Fedora/SOLR, the NTRL V3.0 builds upon the successes of previous iterations by offering the public online access to the large NTIS repository of scientific and technical information through the use of enhanced functionalities, features and improved display.

The NTIS repository consists of over 2 million bibliographic records representing billions of dollars in federally-funded research performed over the past 70 years with a broad scope of Scientific, Technical & Engineering Information (STEI) subject coverage. NTIS sought to improve dissemination of STEI, and economic, social and environmental information by permanently enlarging, preserving and providing ready access to its repository.

The NTIS seeks to actively collect, preserve and disseminate STEI and other information thereby supporting the Department of Commerce mission to promote U.S. economic growth by providing access to information that stimulates innovation and discovery. The NTRL V3.0 represents the NTIS commitment to ensuring access to this invaluable repository is affordable, convenient, and widely available to the academic, corporate, library and government communities, and to the public-at-large.

The NTRL V3.0 was developed by the Federal Science Repository Service (FSRS) a public-private partnership between NTIS and Information International Associates, Inc. (IIa) of Oak Ridge, TN. The intent of the public-private partnership was to create an Institutional Repository (IR) Service for federal agencies.

The US' National Technical Information Service (NTIS), in agreement with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), has announced the launch of a pilot programme to provide the public with access to official agency training content via the web at usptotraining.gov. Under the arrangement, more than 60 computer-based training modules on intellectual property law are being made available online to the general public for the first time through a learning management system (LMS).

The training modules were primarily created for the USPTO patent and trademark examiners, but all intellectual property professionals can reportedly benefit from the information they provide. The training modules are being made available to the public for the first time in support of President Obama's transparency and open government initiative. NTIS is an agency of the US Department of Commerce,

Examples of the more than 60 training modules available via usptotraining.gov include Interview practice between examiner and applicant; Basic requirements to file a patent application; Introduction to the Patent Cooperation Treaty; the Trademark International Classification System for goods and services; and Written description guidelines, examples and court decisions.

Additional modules and new features may be added following the completion of the 90- day pilot period. A fee will be charged to access most of the available modules.

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

The National Technical Information Service has called on the library, academic and business communities to evaluate the National Technical Reports Library (NTRL) Repository Beta Version 2.0.

The new version improves and enhances the existing NTRL 1.0 in several ways to include fielded search; search by author, title, date, descriptor/identifier, report number, document type, or NTIS issue number; full-text searching; search with boolean operators (and, or, not) within the search fields allowing creation of complex strategies; search by year/date range; clustering of results for further refinement by year, source, NTIS subject category, or keyword; search multiple subject categories simultaneously; search results displays number of hits; complete metadata returned for selected record; metadata hotlinks; and more. The evaluation period ends May 23, 2011. Entities interested in participating in the beta evaluation may contact NTIS at NTRLTesters@ntis.gov for more details.

Since the launch in April 2009, the NTRL 1.0 has proven successful at providing subscription-based access to over 3 million scientific and technical reports produced by the U.S. Federal Government and other sources to thousands of end-users around the world. The NTRL 2.0 expands upon this original concept by using Fedora's open architecture which provides a repository environment.

Search for more Digital Asset Management Platforms

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) have announced an agreement ensuring long-term preservation and access to the NTIS collection of authenticated and secured digital scientific, technical, and engineering information (STEI). It is expected that the results of this agreement will have a positive impact on the public, academia, corporations and federal, state, and local government agencies.

The National Archives will work in partnership with NTIS to encourage and promote agency transfers of digital STEI materials to NTIS as successful fulfillment of an agency obligation to transfer permanently valuable digital STEI records to NARA. Currently, the NTIS collection consists of more than two terabytes of scientific, technical, and engineering information. Access to STEI records will be provided by NTIS. The National Archives will maintain a 'dark archives' back up copy of all the STEI records, and assume legal custody of the records when they become 40 years old.

The National Archives and Records Administration is the US' record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the US federal government, only 2 percent – 3 percent are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by the National Archives forever, and made available to researchers. National Archives holdings and diverse programmes are now available to more people than ever before through modern technology and dynamic partnerships.

NTIS seeks to improve access of new cutting edge scientific, technical, and engineering information. The mission of NTIS is to permanently enlarge, preserve and provide ready access to support innovation and economic growth. It promotes the development and application of this STEI collection by providing technologically advanced global e-commerce channels for dissemination to business, industry, government, and the public.

Search for more scientific, technical and engineering information

To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.