NTIS is a division of USA Department of Commerce. Its aim is to help disseminate the scientific, technical and business related information produced by US government agencies. A supplemental role is to identify information sources from other governments which are useful to the US.

Information services include:

(a) Fedworld WWW/telnet/FTP service: WWW service provides a directory of US government information sites (arranged by subject); abstracts of recent US Government reports (last 30 days); directories of publications (from the Government Printing Office (GPO)); full text of some government documents (via FTP: the WWW site offers a keyword searchable interface for retrieving the documents); commerce information location service (CLIS); World News Connection (includes FBIS data: see separate entry); databases (Federal Research in Progress) and access to document ordering services. Some databases require a subscription or registration.

(b) NTIS bibliographical database: covers results of US government sponsored research in technical and commercial fields by federal agencies, their contractors or grantees. From 1964 to date. Also includes data provided by some other national governments (including UK, Japan, France, Germany). Available online (via Dialog, ESA, Questel, STN) and on CDROM (on Silverplatter (from 1983) and on Dialog on Disc (from 1980))

(c) NTIS Alerts: fortnightly briefing service on new publications on specific subjects. Subscription required.