I have the official defintion right here...
 
National Technical Information Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of
Commerce, is the central source for the public sale of U.S.
Government-sponsored research, development, and engineering reports. The NTIS
Bibliographic Database contains bibliographic citations and summaries of
information products, including technical reports, software packages, and data
files.
 
NTIS is a source for a great deal of the "grey literature" in archaeology.
This is where a lot of the government sponsored CRM reports end up and are not
published anywhere else. It has a print index that is very difficult to use,
so I was delighted when it came out with a subject/keyword searchable index.
 
Anita Cohen-Williams; Reference Services; Hayden Library
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ  85287-1006
PHONE: (602) 965-4579              FAX: (602) 965-9169
[log in to unmask]  Owner: HISTARCH, SPANBORD, SUB-ARCH