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        | Sponsoring Agency: | U.S. Department of Commerce Springfield, VA
 |  
        | Description of Services: | The National Technical
        Information Service (NTIS) Bibliographic Data Base is a
        self-supporting agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce
        and is the largest single source for public access to
        federally produced information. NTIS is the federal
        agency charged with collecting and distributing federal
        scientific, technical, and engineering information. The
        NTIS collection covers current technologies, business and
        management studies, foreign and domestic trade,
        environment and energy, health, social sciences, general
        statistics, and hundreds of other areas. When government
        agencies and their contractors forward reports and other
        items to NTIS, these items are entered into the NTIS
        computerized bibliographic data base and become part of
        the NTIS archive. |  
        | Data: | The NTIS bibliographic data
        base contains data about federally generated
        machine-readable data files and software, U.S. government
        inventions available for licensing, reports on new
        technologies developed by federal agencies, federally
        generated translations, and reports prepared by non-U.S.
        government agencies. An increasing proportion of the data
        base consists of unpublished material originating outside
        the United States. Most NTIS records include an abstract. |  
        | Access: | The NTIS data base is
        available to the public through a number of commercial
        vendors including: 
        CISTI (613-993-1210/in Canada)DIALOG (800-334-2564)
 ORBIT (800-456-7248, 703-442-0900/in Virginia)
 STN International (800-848-6533)
 Some of these systems also allow ordering printed
        copies of documents from the NTIS collection. NTIS also
        allows ordering of documents from the sales desk (800-553-6847). The data base is also available on CD-ROMs from a
        number of vendors. |  
        | Hardware/Software: | The hardware and software
        required to access NTIS online depend upon the individual
        system used, but generally include a computer, modem, and
        communications software for dial-in access and a computer
        and CD-ROM drive for a CD-ROM version. |  
        | Contact: | National Technical
        Information Service U.S. Department of Commerce Springfield, VA 22161
 800-553-6847
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