The mission of NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) is to help the public find and obtain NRC information in the agency's extensive electronic, paper, and microfiche collections. The PDR is staffed by reference and technical librarians. Its holdings are focused on unclassified documents related to the NRC's licensing and rulemaking activities, as well as documents from the regulatory activities of the former Atomic Energy Commission.
The PDR is located at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. Telephone reference service is provided between 8:00am and 4:00pm Eastern Time at 301-415-4737 or at 1-800-397-4209, Monday through Friday except Federal holidays.
In order to make the most efficient use of available staff resources, we are changing the way the PDR will be staffed. Beginning on March 31, 2014, access to the PDR will be available weekdays during the hours 7:45am to 4:15pm:
- by prior request submitted via e-mail (pdr.resource@nrc.gov ); or
- by telephone request to the PDR (301-415-4737); or
- members of the public arriving at the entrance to One White Flint North may ask the guards to call the Technical Library to arrange a librarian to assist them; however, we strongly recommend using options 1 or 2 above to schedule an appointment in advance.
If you have any comments or questions, please contact Stephanie Blaney, chief of the FOIA, Library, and Information Collections Branch. Ms. Blaney may be contacted at 301-415-6975 or Stephanie.Blaney@nrc.gov. Thank you very much for your understanding.
Please let us know how we're doing by sending us a note or participating in our voluntary PDR Satisfaction Survey. The nine-question survey should take only a few minutes, and you can give us feedback on both the service you received from the PDR and NRC's ADAMS database.
See the following for more information on the PDR and its services:
Visiting the PDR
The PDR is located at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. One White Flint North is a secure building and visitors to the PDR Reading Room must obtain a visitor's badge at the guard station in the lobby.
Certain prohibited items cannot be brought into the PDR. Those items include food or drink; items which could cause property damage or personal injury; cameras, copying, imaging, or recording devices; firearms, explosives, or incendiary devices. Copying or imaging devices that are prohibited include scanners, CD-ROM writers, photocopy machines, flash drives, or other devices that permit duplication of NRC documents.
Users planning to visit the PDR are encouraged to contact the reference staff to verify the availability of documents needed. Documents released before November 1, 1999 are available on microfiche; in selected instances, some documents released before November 1, 1999 are now also available in full-text in ADAMS. See ADAMS Public Documents for details.
The PDR provides computer access in the Reading Room for those users who wish to search NRC's electronic full text document retrieval systems.
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Wednesday, January 03, 2024