Inspec Updates: New Coverage, Cited References, and New Platforms!

We’ve already looked at the highlights of the updated PatBase and Compendex Intellogist Reports, and now the Inspec Intellogist Report has been fully updated!  Inspec is a non-patent literature database produced by the  Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and it covers more than 12 million records in the areas of physics, electronics, computing, mechanical engineering, and business.  Inspec began as the Science Abstracts Journals, a print publication, in 1898, and began to include and index other sources from 1968 up until the present.  Currently, Inspec is available through a number of search platforms, including Dialog, STN, Engineering Village, Inspec Direct, etc.

So how has Inspec changed during 2011?  The database has had a busy year, with a new “cited references” field, new coverage, and powerful new search platforms.  After the jump, learn what’s new with Inspec!

Cited References Field: According to the Major Recent Updates section for Inspec, the database began adding a “cited references” field to records in 2011.  The database will add cited references from articles it covers from the end of 2010, and vendors have loaded these references during 2011.  According to an announcement on the IET website in the summer of 2011 (screenshot via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine), “the functionality will vary from platform to platform but where available each citation will have links to the matching Inspec record and a DOI link to the full-text of the referenced work. It should also be possible to carry out searching for articles that cite a particular article and look for related records via citation links.”

New Coverage: Notable new coverage added to Inspec includes:

• Scientific video presentations, including about 2,000 IET videos of technical IET conference presentations from the IET.tv website.
• Metadata from 186 Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) journals.
• English abstracts for 36 journals from Uzbekistan and Moldova.  ICSTI represents publishers from Russian Federation countries, and it signed a contract with Uzbekistan and Moldova to supply these English-language abstracts. (From  ”IET Inspec Matters.” Summer 2011, Issue 117)
• 100 doctoral theses from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  (From  ”IET Inspec Matters.” Summer 2011, Issue 117)

New Search Platforms: Inspec can now be searched on:

• ProQuest Dialog
• Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge (From  ”IET Inspec Matters.” Summer 2011, Issue 117)
• Coming in 2012 – Inspec will be available on a Minesoft platform.

Check out the entire updated Intellogist Report for Inspec over on Intellogist for more coverage information, search tips, and a comparison of main platforms on which Inspec is searchable!

Do you know of any upcoming changes to the Inspec database or any of the search platforms on which it’s available?  Let us know in the comments!

This post was contributed by Joelle Mornini. The Intellogist blog is provided for free by Intellogist’s parent company Landon IP, a major provider of patent searches, trademark searches, technical translations, and information retrieval services.

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