NRC Public Electronic Reading Room

[GlennACarlson@aol.com]

At end of 1999 NRC began making agency and licensee documents publicly 
available via the internet.  The new system is called ADAMS, and, though VERY 
quirky, seems to provide minimally acceptable access.  Features include 
full-text search and document retrieval as scanned image or PDF format.

I've only been playing around with the system since last week, so I don't 
have much more to say about the system, but does appear to be a good way to 
keep up on the document traffic between NRC and your favorite (or not) 
licensee.  

ADAMS is currently down for maintenance until Monday (6/12) morning.  Give it 
a trry, though, and decide for yourself.

Glenn A. Carlson, P.E.
GlennACarlson@aol.com
------------
Excerpt from http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html

ADAMS is a public information system that allows access to NRC's publicly  
available documents. It supports expanded public access to these documents 
via the Internet. It permits full text searching and the ability to view 
document images, download files, and print locally. It also provides more 
timely release of documents to the public. The methods used for ADAMS search 
and retrieval by the public are the
same as those being used by the NRC staff for management of agency documents.

ADAMS will replace the Bibliographic Retrieval System (BRS) and the Nuclear 
Documents System (NUDOCS), the two systems the public currently uses to 
search for NRC records.

ADAMS uses a commercially available document management software package that 
has been customized for use by the NRC. It, like the BRS and NUDOCS, requires 
the user to learn the software features that permit searching and retrieval 
of documents. This is different from browsing documents on the internet and 
using Web search engines. New users are strongly encouraged to print and 
review the ADAMS
User's Guide before beginning to use ADAMS. First time users should pay 
special attention to the following sections.

    Viewing ADAMS Documents 
    Printing ADAMS Documents 
    Downloading/Copying ADAMS Documents 
    Ordering Copies of NRC Documents 

Frequent users may wish to take advantage of free ADAMS training available at 
the NRC Public Document Room (PDR).

If you do not plan to become a regular users of ADAMS, it may be more 
efficient to locate NRC documents of interest by requesting assistance from 
the NRC Public Document Room reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 202-634-3273, 
or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov.

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