Inspec’s Database for Nano Will Continue to Grow

Jul 24, 2007

Inspec, after the merger of its parent with another scientific group, continues to increase its commitment to expand nanoscience content within its world-class multidisciplinary database for physics, electrical and electronic engineering, and computing and control engineering.

Inspec became one of the first scientific databases to specifically address nanoscience topics in 1993, and now regularly monitors some 6400 publications for nanotechnology and nanoscience materials, including books, conference proceedings and scientific publications (Inspec updates its database weekly).

Just last year, in May 2006, Inspec’s founding organization, the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), merged with the Institution of Incorporate Engineers. Under this newly-named Institution of Engineering Technology, Inspec’s focus on nanotechnology will accelerate, observers say.

Mr. Howard M. Dess, the Physical Sciences Resource Librarian at Rutgers University (New Jersey), writing in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, predicts Inspec’s nanotechnology data additions will grow from 400,000 new records per year to more than 550,000 records per year, driven largely by increased interest in nanotechnology and computational items.

Inspec - the premier source for Nanotechnology

One of the many benefits of nanoscience and nanotechnology is the prospect of reducing the quantity of raw materials needed in the manufacturing of goods. Current commercial applications include such diverse areas as scratch resistant paints, self- sterilising surfaces and high-performance hard drives for computers. Applications in development include miniature diagnostic medical devices, quantum dots and quantum wells for solid-state lasers.

Search Terms

The Inspec database introduced a specific Thesaurus term for nanotechnology in 1993 and since then over 11000 records have been indexed under this broad term alone! Figure 1 shows the 2005 Inspec Thesaurus entry for nanotechnology with details of available narrower terms, related terms and suggested Inspec Classification Codes. Inspec staff always index and classify a document at the most specific level. Many Inspec Vendor systems with an online version of the Inspec Thesaurus offer an “explode” feature whereby all of the narrower terms to the “exploded” thesaurus term are automatically searched without the searcher needing to key in each term separately or needing to check each in turn.

Figure 1: Inspec Thesaurus entry for Nanotechnology

A reclassified Inspec database is available to Inspec Vendors with all relevant records back to 1969 automatically classified with manufacturing and production engineering codes, known as Section E Inspec Classification Code E3644T can be used to search for Nanotechnology Industry, and E1520P for Nanofabrication. However, there are many specific classification codes in the other four sections of the Inspec database such as:

Figure 3: Inspec sample record (from STN) with nanotechnology indexing and classifications

Publications

Listed publications:

Inspec records are currently selected from over 3400 journal titles plus over 3000 other publications. These “other” publications include conference proceedings and the individual conference papers, books plus book chapters, reports plus report sections and dissertations. Figure 2 shows a list of the most relevant journal titles abstracted by Inspec on Nanotechnology or Nanostructured Materials.

Current Awareness Searches

Finally, to keep abreast of all the new developments and issues surrounding nanoscience and nanotechnology, set up a Current Awareness search (an Alert, saved search or SDI (selective dissemination of Information)) within Inspec to monitor new materials or new applications, risk analysis or government policies, and use the Inspec Vendor’s statistical analysis feature to identify key nanotechnology organisations and individuals that produce the greatest number of publications in the subject.

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