Produced by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), Inspec from ISI Web of Knowledge is the leading English-language bibliographic information service providing access to the world's scientific and technical literature in the following fields: physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers, computing, information technology, manufacturing, and production engineering.
With Inspec you can uncover research information in specialized areas such as materials science, oceanography, nuclear engineering, geophysics, biomedical engineering, and biophysics. Inspec now includes the entire collection of Science Abstracts Journals (back to volume one) dating from 1898 to 1968.
The Science Abstracts Journals were the precursor to the Inspec database. The subject coverage is:
- All aspects of physics (originally published as Physics Abstracts).
- Electrical and electronic engineering (introduced as a separate journal in 1903, and originally published as Electrical and Electronic Abstracts).
- Computing and control engineering (introduced as a separate journal in 1966, and published initially as Control Abstracts, later renamed to Computer and Control Abstracts).
Search Tips:
- The default search limits are: alllanguages, all document types and all treatment types. Selected limits stay in effect until you clear them by clicking the Clear button.
- The tiny magnifying glass symbol at the end of a search box signifies a browseable field. By clicking on this symbol you will be able do search a list of all items, such as author’s name in the database. This is particularly useful if you don’t know how an author’s name is listed. Some use their entire name, some use first initials only. Click on the word add by the author’s names you want to include in your search.
- Wildcards can be used in all search fields that allow words and phrases. They can be used in a search query to represent unknown characters.
- The asterisk (*) represents any group of characters, including no character.
- The question mark (?) represents any single character.
- The dollar sign ($) represents zero or one character (useful when searching for expressions).
Wildcards may be used inside or at the end of search terms -- but not at the beginning. For example, sul*ur is allowed, but *ploid is not. When you search by Topic or Title, you must use at least three characters before the asterisk, question mark, or dollar sign or your search will generate an error. When you search by any other field (except the Topic and Title fields), you must use at least one character before the asterisk, question mark, or dollar sign or your search will generate an error.
You cannot use wildcards after special characters (/ @ #) and punctuation (. , : ; !). You cannot use wildcards in a publication year search. For example, 2007 is OK but 200* is not.
Where is it: Go to the UNLV Libraries' home page http://www.library.unlv.edu. Select the Articles and Databases tab, click on the A-Z List of Databases and then on the letter I and select Inspec.