Conference Proceedings: A How-To-Find Guide

SAE Special Publications – are sometimes published within the SAE Technical Paper series.

SAE publishes approximately 2,000 technical papers annually. All technical papers are included in this series. The papers are all indexed on the SAE website from the Advanced Search page OR by going to the Technical Papers page and using the search box. This will tell you "where" the paper was published if it was within a journal, proceedings, or within the technical papers series. The website appears to cover technical papers back to 1905.

If you are looking for a technical paper and cannot find it on the SAE website - try looking in the Annual Index/Abstracts of SAE Technical Papers. This is a print collection of indexes with one volume published each year. This same information is available in the Cumulative Index of SAE Technical Papers which compiles all of the individual annual volumes into one large set. Both sets will tell you which volume of the SAE Transactions, if any, published a specific paper.

Annual Index/Abstracts of SAE Technical Papers use for 1994-2004. Call number: TL1 S013t3 (Parks Library Reference - Tier 2) Cumulative Index of SAE Technical Papers use for 1965-1993. Call number: TL 1 S64 (Parks Library Reference - Tier 2)

SAE Transactions – at the end of each year, selected peer-reviewed technical papers are compiled into subject specific SAE transactions. They are touted as the “best yearly papers.” If you cannot locate the transaction volume you need, look for the paper within the SAE Technical Paper series.

In summary, if you have a citation to a SAE paper and you cannot find it in any of the other series, look for it within the SAE Technical Papers as it is the most comprehensive and contains all SAE papers - regardless of how they are cited.

Some information for this page taken from: Thompson, Larry A. 2001. "Engineering Conference Papers: A Primer for Collection Development and Reference," Science & Technology Libraries, 20(4): 13-28.