ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to provide some basis of comparison for three major technical report indexes Government Reports Announcements and Index, Energy Research Abstracts (ERA) and Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR). The decision was made to focus on three primary printed technical report indexes, rather than attempt to cover the entire spectrum of technical report resources. Cumulative indexes are published semiannually and annually STAR is issued on the 8th and 23rd of each month. The ERA provides abstracting and indexing coverage for all publications sponsored by Department of Energy. The report number indexes vary not only in the levels of access they provide, but also in the variety of alphanumeric sequences each uses. While report numbers have been standardized to a great extent, certain small variations and can cause problems both for the indexer in listing the numbers, and for the user in finding them within the report number indexes.
