Judy Russell
National Commission on Library and Information Services
1110 Vermont Avenue Street N.W.
Suite 820
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Judy:

I regret that canceled flights and bad weather kept me from the important meeting regarding the future of NTIS. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of NTIS to Georgia Tech and local industry.

Georgia Tech subscribes to the NTIS database and maintains an extensive technical reports collection. In fiscal year 1999, we acquired 11,814 PB reports and 28,278 AD reports. We also acquire NASA reports through the Depository Library Program and Department of Energy Reports.

The NTIS database and reports collection supports our instructional and research programs. The index consolidates indexes and abstracts from a variety of agencies. Our faculty and students easily find what they need from one locally mounted database. No agency or index provides a comprehensive source for Government sponsored research. The increasing interdisciplinarity of research requires a comprehensive index where researchers can find the work sponsored by all agencies in one place.

People seeking this information would be severely hampered if they had to search many web sites. The NTIS database is one of our most heavily used sources. Last year our faculty, students, and staff performed 16,000 searches on the database. About 900 current awareness searches are performed routinely with the NTIS database. These searches are downloaded to the faculty member's e-mail. The database is an essential tool! Our most valuable assets at Georgia Tech are the knowledge and time of our faculty. Our goal in the Library is to increase information finding productivity through databases such as NTIS.

Other academic libraries provide access to NTIS through Silverplatter and Cambridge Scientific, These universities include Cornell, MIT, Penn State, Texas A & M, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin. Institutions performing large numbers of Federal research contracts must have a single comprehensive source for indexes and reports.

We have maintained a repository of reports for since the 1960s. Our current technical reports collection contains 2-6 million items. Last year 1700 reports were used in the Library. We also ordered duplicate reports when requested by faculty.

Our research efforts would suffer if the comprehensive database was not available and reports were not easily obtainable. The NTIS products and services are essential for research and instructional support.

The NTIS database and technical reports are valuable investments and business development tools. We have many young entrepreneurs who use the reports to learn about research and develop new products. The investment pays off in new business and economic development.

The taxpayers of the US have paid for the research and they must have access to the results.

Sincerely,

Miriam A. Drake
Dean and Director of Libraries
Georgia Institute of Technology
Library and Information Center

cc: Patty Bartlett
Georgia Congressional Delegation
John Crosby-Special Libraries Association