Technical Reports: Atomic Energy Commission Reports Digitized by TRAIL

From the Center for Research Libraries (CRL):

The Hanford Reservation in south central Washington is one of several historic weapons-production sites in the United States that were identified and created within months in the early 1940s when it became clear to the U.S. government that efforts to create a new, more powerful weapon would influence the outcome of World War II. In addition to Hanford, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, were the top secret locations where nuclear weapons were produced.

After the war, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created to direct peacetime development of atomic science. Large numbers of technical reports began flowing out of national laboratories researching nuclear science, commercial uses of nuclear power, and radioactive materials and their effects on people and the environment. TRAIL (The Technical Report Archive & Image Library) has been digitizing AEC reports as part of its mission to make accessible historic federal technical reports. To date nearly 5,000 titles, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s, from many laboratories and research sites across the country, such as Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory, have been digitized and added to TRAIL.These reports are invaluable for research in topics including atomic energy, the effects of radiation on biological systems, restoration of the environment, radiation cleanup, and the history of the development of the atomic bomb and atomic energy resources in the United States.

Direct to TRAIL (Technical Report and Image Library) Read the Complete CRL Blog Post

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