Although ATE is utilized extensively in both manufacturing and maintenance applications, surprisingly few textbooks have been published on the subject. A search through the Library of Congress index of published books reveals that by 1997 only four have been published that are devoted to ATE since the first was published in 1974 by IEEE Press. The three that could be classified as textbooks are entirely devoted to manufacturing applications of ATE with no mention of the multibillion dollar market for maintenance testing utilized principally by the military and the airline industry.

The principal sources of documentation are the periodic symposia, conferences, and workshops dedicated to various ATE specialties. They provide both invited and volunteered papers which are subject to peer review. Copies of recent issues are generally sold directly by the technical societies sponsoring the events. Some conferences offer tutorial sessions that provide valuable prerequisite information covering basic principles or advanced techniques. These meetings, with their respective publications, are the best source of technical information, because they are directed at a wide variety of applications and tend to contain the latest developments in ATE technology. The International Test Conference is devoted almost exclusively to manufacturing test and AUTOTESTCON is almost exclusively devoted to maintenance testing.

There are many periodicals, generally published monthly, that provide a medium for publishing volunteered papers of variable quality. Industry studies are common but they stress marketing data rather than providing a source of technical information. Other publications, such as user guides, deal with the specifics of particular ATEs so they are of limited value for general education since all ATEs are different.

Some useful books are listed below.

Some useful conference records are as follows.