Library Guides: A Guide to Engineering Research: Standards, reports, & patents

Standards

Please contact the Science & Engineering Librarian, Meg Eastwood, if you need access to a standard and can't find it in our collection. Standards can be expensive and tricky to find, but the DU Libraries will try to provide access if possible!

Full text access to standards:

ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the 15 sections of the ASTM Book of Standards. Also lets you search journal articles, book chapters, and other content published by ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials).

There are over 64,000 engineering and technical standards contained in this resource. Of those, over 13,000 are active standards, while the other 50,000 are historical or withdrawn standards.
IEEE Xplore This link opens in a new window
Collection of journal articles, conference proceedings, ebooks, and standards published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Content dates from 1988 - present.
Compass (Search All) This link opens in a new window
If you know the name of the standard you need, cut & paste the title into the Compass search box to see if the library has previously purchased access.

Read only access to standards:

ANSI Incorporated by Reference (IBR) Portal
The IBR Portal provides read-only access to standards that have been incorporated by reference in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. There are no print or download options, and you'll have to register for various free accounts, but it does offer a free way to read the copyrighted standards on which our laws are based. The IBR Portal is relatively difficult to search -- but you can use a site search via Google or DuckDuck Go.

Identify existing standards (Contact Meg Eastwood to purchase full-text if needed):

IHS Global Engineering Documents: Standards This link opens in a new window
Search the world's largest collection of technical standards. Note: University Libraries does not subscribe to the order feature of the database, but you can use it to verify titles and standard numbers.

ANSI Webstore
Use the ANSI Webstore to locate standards. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) administers and coordinates the U.S. standards and conformity assessment system. Note: University Libraries does not subscribe to the order feature of the database, but you can use it to verify titles and standard numbers.

Patent resources

The databases below can help you get started with a basic patent search.

For more technical patent searches, contact the the Denver Public Library Patent and Trademark Resource Center. As the only designated Patent & Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) in Colorado, The Denver Public Library provides free access to patent and trademark resources in various formats, and reference librarians provide assistance and instruction on how to perform a preliminary patent and trademark search.
DU Faculty & Staff hoping to apply for a patent or a trademark should contact the Office of Technology Transfer.

Search for patents in:

United States Patent & Trademark Office
Patent Full-Text and Full-Page Image Databases. Issued Patents are full-text since 1976, full-page images since 1790. Highly recommended: check out their Seven Step Strategy for patent searching
Espacenet Network (European Patent Organization)
Espacenet is a free service on the internet provided by the European Patent Organisation through the EPO and the national offices of its members states. Access published patent applications with an English abstract and title from over 30 million documents. Over 150 Million full text pages are available for download.
Patent Fetcher
Looking for a free way to get complete U.S. Patent and published Patent Application PDF files after you have performed a patent search? Look no further - this site has what you need.
PAT2PDF
Another good place to get PDFs of US patents.
Google Patents
Search the full text of over 7 million patents, going back to 1789.

SciFinder-n This link opens in a new window
Indexes many patents in the United States and around the world.

Technical reports

Compendex (EI) This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive engineering database. In addition to journal articles, Compendex also indexes technical reports and conference articles from all areas of engineering.
NTIS (National Technical Information Service) via U.S. Department of Commerce This link opens in a new window
The largest central resource for U.S. government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information. NTIS provides access to technical reports and federal data.
NTRS: NASA Technical Reports Server This link opens in a new window
NTRS provides access to aerospace-related scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA. Sources include conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos. Content dates from 1900 - present.

Technical Report Archive and Image Library
Search U.S. government technical reports digitized or harvested by TRAIL. The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.

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A Guide to Engineering Research