About TRAIL - Technical Report Archive & Image Library
Expanding Access to U.S. Government Technical Reports; TRAIL identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes, and provides free access to U.S. government technical reports, preserving valuable scientific and technological literature.
TRAIL hosts an annual meeting to welcome new members, set policies, and discuss strategic planning.
Access & Preservation
- Reports are digitized and stored in HathiTrust and the University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Library—both offering full-text search and strict preservation standards.
- TRAIL’s search interface allows metadata-based searches.
Funding & Membership
- TRAIL relies on member institutions for funding and support.
- 80% of content is digitized through Google. The remaining 20%, requiring special handling is digitized at UNT.
- Membership fees help cover costs like cataloging, metadata creation, and shipping.
Collaborations & Partnerships
- TRAIL partners with University of Arizona, University of Michigan, UNT, University of Washington, and others to process, digitize, and archive reports.
- A member of the CRL Global Resources Network, TRAIL benefits from administrative support and a collaborative workspace.
Key Institutional Roles
- University of Arizona: Central processing site for inventory, cataloging, and shipping reports for digitization.
- University of Michigan: Facilitates digitization via Google.
- UNT: Handles reports requiring special digitization and hosts non-Google content.
- University of Washington: Maintains TRAIL’s search interface.
