MIT Technical Reports

MIT Technical Reports

MIT technical report publications are sent to 14E-210 directly from Archives. A student working under the Thesis cataloger, barcodes each copy as they are received. The technical reports cataloger takes work directly from the designated wall space.

Technical reports searching and verification

Since technical reports are issued, not published, the date of issue and the issuing body are extremely important in finding copy in OCLC. When looking for matching copy in OCLC look for:
Same title (245 $a) and statement of responsibility (245 $c), field,
Same department or issuing body in the (260 $b) field,
Exact date of issue in the fixed field (Dates), (250) and/or the (260 $c) field.
On the piece, the date may take the form of month/day/year, or month/year, or just year, which will translate on the bibliographic record to the (260 $c) [date] and a (500) field as “month, day, year” and in the fixed field as (DtSt) e and (Dates) [year] and [mmdd].  The date used may be found on the piece on the title page, the abstract title page, the caption title page, or in the series statement.
All technical reports are classed together and the volume number is taken from the series statement. Series statements on the piece may vary as some reports are issued over long periods of time and the issuing body itself can undergo several name changes during the years of publication.
Most of the time, copy will not be found online for the technical report in hand, so the cataloger will use ‘derive new record’ from an existing record in the same series, or from a bibliographic record with the same title issued by another corporate body.