Slide 1
Inspec (The Database for Physics, Electronics and Computing) includes the three Science Abstracts print abstract journal publications: Physics Abstracts, Electrical and Electronics Abstracts, and Computer and Control Abstracts, which began publication in 1898, and two other technology areas: Information Technology for Business, Manufacturing, & Production and Mechanical Engineering. In the following overview you will see what this database contains, the structure of records and how it is vital for your science, engineering and technology research.
Slide 2
Inspec comprises over 13 million records taken from scientific and technical literature published around the globe. Each record contains enough information to enable searchers to pinpoint the content they need for their research. The databases contain bibliographic abstracts and indexing to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical reports and other literature in the fields of science and technology. The Institution of Engineering and Technology is one of the world's leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. Inspec, the IET's bibliographic database of abstracts to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical reports and other literature, celebrated its 13th million record this year. Inspec dates back to 1989 and is updated weekly.
Slide 3
A bit about the history describes how Inspec got its start. The Institution of Engineering and Technology is one of the world's leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community. The IET has more than 150,000 members in 127 countries and offices in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. The IET provides a global knowledge network to facilitate the exchange of ideas and promote the positive role of science, engineering and technology in the world.
For over 100 years, Inspec has been helping the scientific and research community to find the right information originating with the Science Abstracts journals in 1898. Developed from 'Science Abstracts', first published in January 1898, the INSPEC database was created in 1969. In January, 1973 the INSPEC Thesaurus and Unified Classification Scheme was introduced and in the same year in September INSPEC went online at Lockheed DIALOG via the Tymeshare network in the United States; the whole database (600,000 records) was available for searching in September 1973 only in the U.S. through Lockheed's DIALOG retrieval system. Throughout the 1980s the size of the database grew dramatically from two million records in March 1982 to over 3.5 million records by the end of the decade. Chemical and numerical data indexing was also introduced.
A database upgrade project was completed in 1989 bringing every record (3.2 million of them) up to current day quality standards . The project had required 3.5 man years of software development and more than two years of computer time. When the project was completed in June 1989 and named Inspec2, every single record (3.25 million) had been brought up to current day quality standards. The revised database was named INSPEC2. In November 1990 Inspec2 was loaded on Dialog. By the end of 1997, INSPEC had reached 5.75 million records and was growing at a rate of over 300,000 records per year.
In 2004 the new 1898 – 1968 Inspec Archive file provided a fascinating insight into some of the original material. For the first time, a researchers could sit at their computers and seamlessly search the records of the scientific discoveries shown in both Science Abstracts and the Inspec database for over a hundred years.
Slide 4
Inspec is a key resource for global, quality and comprehensive science and engineering information spanning 110 years. It contains records on Physics (59%), electrical engineering (37%), Computing and control at 27%, Information Technology 1% and Manufacturing, Production & Mechanical Engineering at 8%.
Slide 5
The coverage in Inspec is quite diverse from communications, computer science, control engineering, information technology to significant coverage of areas such as operations research, material science, engineering mathematics and nuclear engineering. It also covers interdisciplinary topics like environmental science, geophysics, nanotechnology, biomedical technology, oceanography and biophysics.
Slide 6
Inspec derives its content from 95 nations around the world. Notice the percentages of sources coming from different countries.
Slide 7
Inspec is one of the most respected databases in the information business. It contains an extensive thesaurus and coding for different subjects. We will look at the thesaurus and coding in more detail in a minute.
Use Inspec to answer questions for background when conducting scientific research. In the patent area, check the file for prior art, potential licensees for a product, and for infringements against a company's patents. Other ways the file is used is for competitive intelligence, the latest technical developments and to keep up to date via Alerts with new innovations.
Slide 8
Inspec's stellar reputation is due largely to the quality of the indexing. To ensure knowledgeable, consistent indexing, Inspec's indexers are subject specialists. In addition, the scope of the indexing has grown since the inception of the file to include not only the usual Thesaurus Term and Classification Code indexes, but also the Uncontrolled Index Terms, Treatment codes, Chemical Substance Indexing, Numerical Data Indexing and Astronomical Object Indexing.
The Inspec Thesaurus consists of just over 10,000 controlled terms. You can use the interactive thesaurus features to display lists of terms in a specific subject area, or to see how preferred terms relate to one another in the thesaurus hierarchy.
For many fields, the entries are checked against an authority file. Fields such as Thesaurus Terms, Classification, Journal Names, Language, and Country of Publication all have authority files.
Inspec assigns treatment codes to indicate the approach taken to a subject by the author of a source document. Treatment codes are especially useful where a search has produced a large number of documents on the required subject. These codes offer a means of selecting those records which are most relevant. A document may have more than one treatment code.
Slide 9
Inspec records contain the following search fields which are illustrated in the sample record that follows. Title, abstract and subject terms are in each record as well as bibliographic fields such as author, publication year, to name a few. In addition, the coding and indexing systems in Inspec let the searcher pinpoint records using chemical indexing, class codes, treatment code and more. These value-added fields make searching Inspec extremely specific.
Slide 10
As you can see, Inspec on Dialog ProQuest has a long history with Dialog bringing you comprehensive information in the sciences.
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