BIDS Inspec Service

INSPEC service guide

INSPEC is one of the most respected databases in the information business, due largely to the quality of the indexing. Coverage includes physics, electrical engineering, electronics, telecommunications, computers, control technology, and information technology. The database contains over 5 million records and approximately 300,000 records are added annually.

The INSPEC service covers data from 1969 to the present and is compiled and produced by the IEE in association with FIZ Karlsruhe

Features of the INSPEC service include:

WinSPIRS and WebSPIRS interfaces
Thesaurus facility
lateral searching facility
saved search histories
Index facility

The BIDS INSPEC service is supported by the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) of the UK Higher Education funding bodies.

Using BIDS INSPEC
To use the service you must be a member of a subscribing institution and have signed an appropriate agreement form.

The service offers you a range of separate INSPEC databases to choose from. The oldest database covers the 10 years from 1969 to 1979. The most recent is the latest week that has been loaded. The other databases vary in time coverage. For example, the last complete year is broken down into two 6-month periods:

INSPEC 1998/07-1998/12
INSPEC 1998/01-1998/06

Search by entering a word or phrase in the box marked ‘Find:’ and click Start Search.

Two or more words or phrases can be combined using the following operators:

AND to narrow the search
OR to widen the search
NOT to exclude terms
ADJ to find terms that are next to each other in the order specified
NEAR to find terms that are in the same sentence
NEARn to find terms within n words of each other
WITH to find entries with terms in the same field
* is used to truncate a word
? represents 0 or 1 character in a word

If you wish, select one or more of the limit options by checking the boxes under the search field.

By default, searches are carried out on all fields ("Words anywhere"). Searches can be restricted to Title, Author or Subject fields using the radio buttons above the search field.

Searching for words in article titles

Click the Title radio button, enter a word or phrase to be searched in the article titles and click Start Search.

Searching for author names

Click the Author button above the search field. Then enter the author’s last name, followed by a space and first initial (if known) followed by * and click Start Search button. Example: Smith A*

Searching for subjects

To search the Descriptor (DE) and Identifier (ID) fields, select the Subject radio button and enter the word or phrase required in the ‘Find:’ box, then click on the Start Search button.

Using other search fields

Click the Search Builder button next to the search field to search in other specialised database fields such as:

Author Affiliation
Editor
Source
Conference Details
Abstract
Descriptors
ISSN
Patent Details

Select the field(s) from the list displayed and enter your search term. A second expression applied to another selection of fields can also be selected in the same way and combined using AND, OR or NOT. When the required fields have been chosen and the expression or phrase entered, click Start Search to search.

Index screen

You can click the Index button to display the Index page where you can look up the terms you want to search and browse a list. Choose which field the term is indexed in using the pull down requester, type the term you require and the click on the Go To Term button. Alternatively, browse the items indexed for a field using the Next and Previous buttons. The General Index lists all terms.

Thesaurus screen

Clicking the Thesaurus button will allow you to review the standardised list of Subject terms and select one or more of them to search on. The list of subjects can be browsed using the Next and Previous buttons or by entering a term and clicking on the Go To Subject button. The topics which match, or most closely match, the term will be displayed with their subjects, which can be checked and searched.

Click Explode Checked Subjects to search for selected terms along with any narrower, more specific terms.

Changing databases

Click the Databases button to select a different range of years of the INSPEC data for searching. One or more of the databases may be checked and then opened using the Open Selected Databases button.

Search results

A Results screen showing the first 10 results from your most recent search is shown after you conduct your search. At the top left of the screen is the number of items your search retrieved and the search run.

TI: Optical tomography of the aurora and EISCAT

AU: Frey-HU; Frey-S; Lanchester-BS; Kosch-M

SO: Annales-Geophysicae. vol.16, no.10; Oct. 1998; p.1332-42.

PY: 1998

LA: English

AN: 6120072

Click on the highlighted author or source to search for additional articles by an author or to locate all of the records from a particular source.

Use the navigation buttons to move through the set:

Previous
Move to the previous record.

Next
Move to the next record in the set.

Change display
Allows you to control how your records are displayed and how many of them are presented on a page. You can also select the type of field labels to use and which fields are to be included on the display. This facility allows the records to be arranged in a specific order by sorting on the content of a chosen field.

Go to
Jump to a particular record in the result set.

Selecting records
You may mark relevant records for subsequent printing, saving or e-mailing. To mark a record, click the checkbox by the record number. The marked records are saved in a set which is kept until you clear it, or log off from the service.

After you complete a search, your search history appears at the bottom of the Search page. It lists all of the searches you have performed so far, along with their results.

Processing results
To e-mail results choose e-mail after you have conducted a search. Type an e-mail address and a subject for the e-mail and then select which records to send.

Select whether to send all or a selected range of records from your last search statement or the records marked during your search session.

Click on one of the predefined choices to select which fields to include, or click on Select Fields to specify your own selection of fields.

The Search History option includes the search statements used in the search with the e-mail.

Record numbers displays the text "Record n of n" before each record in the e-mail.

Opting for word wrapping moves text to the next line within the message if it would be extend beyond the right margin otherwise.

Checking field labels causes the name of each field to be displayed alongside its contents within the e-mail. The choice of displaying short or long labels may be made using the drop down requester.

Printing and saving offers similar choices to those for e-mailing records. The save records dialog will ask you to specify a location and file name where the records are to be saved. The file will be saved on your PC. Use Save to download records to a citation manager package.

Note that printing will require you to use the print facility from your browser’s File Menu.

Refining your search
You can refine your searches by combining or limiting sets, or by lateral searching:

Combining sets
Using the Search History it is possible to re-use searches that you have already conducted to widen or narrow your search. From the list of search sets select those you wish to combine. You can combine them with an AND operator (to narrow the search) or an OR operator (to widen the search). Then click on the Combine Checked button to execute the search.

Limiting scope
It is possible to limit a search to specific publication year ranges or languages using the radio buttons beneath the box marked Find:. Limiting the scope to a particular year or range of years of publication does not override the database selection made elsewhere. Using the Set Other Limits button it is also possible to choose other limits and then by clicking on the Set Limits button, to conduct a search in a more focused way.

Previously selected limits can be removed by clicking on the Clear All Limits button on the Search Screen.

Lateral searching
When you browse your search results, note that some fields (eg: Author and Journal Names) include hypertext links; clicking on these links allows you to perform a lateral search. This automatically searches for the selected word, phrase or name in the same field of other records.

Saving and retrieving searches
You can save search sets to be used again at a later date.

Click Save History on the main search screen. In the boxes enter your email address and a descriptive comment about the search. You can also modify the date at which this file will be deleted. Then click Save History.

To retrieve a saved strategy, click the Load History button and select the desired strategy from the list shown.

Help & information
Contact staff at your local library or computing service for help in the first instance. Support for both advisors and users is also provided by the BIDS Help Desk via email at bidshelp@bids.ac.uk, or phone: 01225 361110.