NCSTRL (pronounced "ancestral") is an international collection of computer science technical reports made available for non-commercial use from a number of participating institutions. For the most part, NCSTRL institutions are universities that grant PhDs in Computer Science or Engineering, with some industrial or government research laboratories. NCSTRL stands for Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library. More complete information about NCSTRL is available at http://www.ncstrl.org.
NCSTRL is based on two previous technologies for technical report libraries. Dienst is a protocol and implementation for distributed digital library servers. WATERS is a system that links distributed FTP report repositores via a centralized index. NCSTRL uses an extension of the original Dienst architecture to combine the distributed Dienst servers (known as NCSTRL-standard sites), the FTP repositories (known as NCSTRL-lite sites), and a central Dienst indexer for the lite sites.
Anyone is welcome to search and read the documents, providing you respect the terms and conditions of the contributors. You search the collection with a Web browser. The collection also has an open interface, allowing access by software agents.
We are eager to add more departments to the library. Participation is open to all departments awarding a PhD in computer science or engineering and to research facilities of industry and government. Placing reports from your institution into this collection will make them searchable worldwide. For further information, see How to Participate in NCSTRL.
Reports provided here are included by the contributing authors as a means to ensure timely distribution of scholarly and technical work on a non-commercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
This work was supported in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency under Grant No. MDA972-92-J-1029 with the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF-CDA-9308259. Its content does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government or CNRI, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Need more help or information? Feel free to e-mail us at help@ncstrl.org.