New Newsletter from NTIS 

 

National Technical Information Service www.ntis.gov pmoton@ntis.gov

U.S. Department of Commerce 703-605-6103 

5285 Port Royal Road 

Springfield, VA 22161 

 CUSTOMER ADVOCATE’S 

 Fall 2008 CORNER Volume 1, Issue 1a 

Welcome to the NTIS Customer Advocate’s Corner — a newsletter 

keep you informed of the latest activities at NTIS affecting 

you, our customer, and to elicit your suggestions for ways we can help 

you: 

designed to I NSIDE T HIS I SSUE

1 New Newsletter from NTIS 

2 A Conversation with the 

NTIS Director 

3 NTIS’ Newly Launched 

Federal Energy Data 

Management Program 

4 Where’s NTIS Exhibiting? 

5 Customer Cases and 

Comments 

Advance your research projects; and 

Multiply your business successes. 

We began this new service during Customer Service Week and will be 

distributing the newsletter to our customers incrementally via e-mail 

during the months of October and November. Director Ellen Herbst and 

the staff of NTIS want to thank you for your business as we look forward 

to working with you in the year to come. Your input is vital if we are to 

fulfill our role as your first contact for the latest scientific, technical, and

business information available from the Federal Government as well as 

from selected international sources. It’s easy to get in touch with me, 

your Customer Advocate, to describe ideas for new items to add to the 

NTIS collection and to make suggestions about how NTIS can serve you 

better, faster, or in some unique way that hasn’t as yet been addressed. 

Simply e-mail Pat Moton at customeradvocate@ntis.gov or call me on my 

direct line, 703-605-6103. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Ellen Herbst has been the Director of NTIS for three years. Her 

background prior to working in the Government was in business 

management and customer outreach and support. 

Pat Moton: “Ellen, what do you consider to be of primary importance to

NTIS?” 

Ellen Herbst: “NTIS’ mission is to support the growth of the scientific 

and technical information community as well as the business community 

by providing access to information that stimulates innovation and 

discovery. Connecting people with that information, and making it easy 

for them to find that information, is of primary importance.” 

Pat: “Have you had any feedback about the NTIS collection and what it 

means to researchers?” 

Please see A Conversation with the NTIS Director on page 3. 

A Conversation with the NTIS Director

“We’ve been told by 

librarians throughout the 

country that the 

information in the NTIS 

collection is valuable and 

unique.” 
Page 2 NTIS CUSTOMER ADVOCATE’S CORNER

Federal Agencies: Do You Need Help 

Complying with the 2005 Energy Policy 

Act? 

I spoke with Shannon Burrington, our Associate Director for Business 

Development, about NTIS’ newly launched Federal Energy Data 

Management Program. She reported that NTIS is poised to support the 

requirements of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and can help Federal 

agencies comply with those requirements for high performance buildings. 

NTIS offers a Web-based energy monitoring solution hosted in a secure 

Federal environment with access via a command and control center. 

Federal agencies will now have the ability to capture, monitor, and report 

real-time energy use for a single location or multiple installations. 

For more information on this exciting development, see our Web page at 

http://www.ntis.gov/services/eng-mgmt.aspx. 

Federal agencies will 

now have the ability to 

capture, monitor, and 

report real-time energy 

use at their installations. 

WHERE’S NTIS EXHIBITING? 

We hope you’ll be able to stop by whenever NTIS is exhibiting in your 

area. 

From March 12-15, 2009, we will be exhibiting at the 14th National 

Conference of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) in 

Seattle, Washington—Booth No. 600. 

From June 14-17, 2009, NTIS will be exhibiting at the Special Libraries 

Association Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in Washington, D.C. 

We just exhibited, from October 1-3, 2008, at the World Energy 

Engineering Congress held at the National Harbor in Washington, D.C. 

You may be aware that NTIS sells the Official Internal Revenue Service 

(IRS) Pub-1796. We’ll be selling the 2008 DVD version which includes 

tax forms, publications, and instructions; and we’re offering a prepublication price of $25 for orders placed for the 2008 version before 

December 1, 2008. (See www.ntis.gov/products/irsdvd.aspx.) After 

that time, the cost will be $30. You can also save the $6 handling fee 

by ordering online. 

NTIS has exhibited at six IRS Tax Forums held in July, August, and 

September of this year. 

 * * * * * * * 

Are there upcoming conferences at which you feel an NTIS exhibit or 

speech would be a valuable contribution? 

Just e-mail me at customeradvocate@ntis.gov or call me at 

703-605-6103. I’ll be sure your suggestion is forwarded to the proper 

NTIS management staff. 

 

 * * * * * * *
NTIS CUSTOMER ADVOCATE’S CORNER Page 3

A Conversation with the NTIS Director from Page 1 

Ellen: “We’ve been told by librarians throughout the country that the 

information in the NTIS collection is valuable and unique. We believe it is 

imperative we make that information easy to access so the people who 

need it can get to it quickly. In the past 15 months, we have been focused 

on making it easier to access this information from our Web site. We think 

we have been successful because more people are finding more of the 

products in our collection.” 

Pat: “Are you planning any future efforts to make our collection more 

accessible?” 

Ellen: “We’re focused on moving forward by understanding much better 

what the users need, how they want it, and the best way for them to see it 

and access it. We want to understand what the people who work for those 

users—the librarians, the research assistants, and others—consider is the 

best way NTIS can serve them.” 

Pat: “I’m sure our customers, and potential customers, will be glad to 

know that their opinions matter and that their input is taken seriously. 

What type of outreach efforts have you found to be effective in collecting 

customer input?” 

Ellen: “We’ve initiated a number of effective outreach efforts, including 

speaking at various conferences and participating in a number of 

associations such as the Special Libraries Association (SLA), the National 

Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS), the Federal Library 

and Information Center Committee (FLICC), and the Association of College 

& Research Libraries (ACRL). 

“From the feedback gathered in this first wave of outreach, NTIS has 

developed some basic requirements for a new information product it will 

call the National Technical Reports Library (NTRL). The vision for NTRL is 

that users will have access to our 2 million plus metadata records and then 

to the underlying full text reports. Users also will be able to select subgroupings of the total collection. The vision includes giving users access 

24/7 online. We look forward to continuing discussions with prospective 

users to develop NTRL into a customer-centric information product.” 

Pat: “I haven’t had a chance, yet, to congratulate you on being elected 

the Chairperson for CENDI. I understand you will be serving through 

June 2010. For the benefit of our readers, what is CENDI?” 

Ellen: “CENDI is an interagency working group of senior scientific and 

technical information managers from 13 Federal agencies. Its mission is to 

help improve the productivity of Federal science- and technology-based 

programs through effective scientific, technical, and related informationsupport systems. CENDI agencies play an important role in addressing 

science- and technology-based national priorities and strengthening U.S. 

competitiveness.” 

Pat: Thanks Ellen. I appreciate your taking the time to share your views. 

NTIS Director elected 

Chairperson for CENDI. 
Page 4 NTIS CUSTOMER ADVOCATE’S CORNER

Print on Demand

Those of you who have been working with NTIS 

for a long time will have noticed that we 

recently updated the description of our media 

types. One of those updates involved changing 

the term “Paper Copy” to “Print on Demand.” 

This created confusion for some of our 

customers. They thought “Print on Demand” 

meant that once they purchased the document 

through our Web site at www.ntis.gov, they 

could then print it at their own computer. 

NTIS focuses on customer concerns and strives to

correct them quickly. In this case, we created a 

“mouseover” to describe our new media 

terminology. Now, when customers move their 

cursor to select “Print on Demand,” an 

explanation of that term appears: “Paper 

document reproduced by NTIS delivered by 

mail – shipping and handling apply.” There is no 

more confusion. The other media types are also 

defined. 

International Pricing

We’ve had a few comments by our international 

customers who did not understand the pricing for

international orders changes in the NTIS shopping

cart once the order is placed. We had an 

explanation of this in the shopping cart area, but

some of our customers weren’t noticing it. That 

explanation is now highlighted in red, and the 

complaints have stopped. 

Written and Edited by: 

Pat Moton 

Customer Advocate 

National Technical 

 Information Service 

5285 Port Royal Road 

Springfield, VA 22161

Phone: 

703-605-6103 

Fax: 

703-605-6900 

Customer Cases and Comments

E-mail: 

customeradvocate@ntis.gov 

Customer Comments

At NTIS, we welcome customer contact. We 

enjoy working with our customers and offer 

them access to an NTIS representative via 

telephone (1-800-553-NTIS(6847) or 

703-605-6000), fax (703-605-6900), and e-mail 

(orders@ntis.gov to place an order, or 

info@ntis.gov to ask for help in finding a 

product). We work with our online customers 

via our Help Desk which can be reached at 

helpdesk@ntis.gov. We also welcome walk-in 

customers to our Bookstore at our Springfield, 

Virginia facility. 

Following are some of the comments we 

recently received from our customers: 

“Bayani, I appreciate your assistance. I don’t 

remember anyone ever helping me so much 

and that quickly. Thanks and have a wonderful

weekend.” 

Steven Stein, Director of Litter and 

Marine Debris Management, MSW 

Consultants, Gaithersburg, MD 

“Hi Kathy . . . Thank you again for your help 

on the phone. As always, we appreciate the 

knowledge and support that NTIS offers.” 

Christopher J. Duff, Regulatory 

Specialist, Ingenix, Rocky Hill, CT 

To receive future copies of

this quarterly newsletter

Please send an e-mail to: 

customeradvocate@ntis.gov 

Please include “Subscribe to NTIS Customer 

Advocate’s Corner” in the subject line of your 

e-mail.