Compendex and INSPEC, along with GeoBase and Knovel, are part of Ei Village. They can be interrogated together or separately.
- Compendex is the world's most comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database. Abstracts cover over 5,000 international journals, conference proceedings and technical papers. Coverage of over 175 engineering and related disciplines is from 1884 onwards.
- INSPEC is contains bibliographic citations and indexed abstracts from publications in the fields of physics, electrical and electronic engineering, communications, computer science, control engineering, information technology, manufacturing and mechanical engineering, operations research, material science, oceanography, engineering mathematics, nuclear engineering, environmental science, geophysics, nanotechnology, biomedical technology and biophysics. Coverage is from 1896.
ACTIVITY 5: Using Compendex and INSPEC
- Within FindIt@Bham https://findit.bham.ac.uk find Ei Village.
- Click on the title Compendex (Ei Village 2)
- This will take you to the Main Search Page.
- Briefly study the Main Search Page. The default search is for keyword but this can be changed by pulling down the “Search In” menus. Note the location of the Help tab.
Searching
This example takes you through the process of finding literature related to ‘Human Interface Technology’ and ‘Gaming’. (This is designed to show how to do a search by combining topics)
- Make sure the boxes for GeoBase and Knovel are unselected
- From the All Fields menu select Subject/Title/Abstract
- Click in the Keyword Search box; type in Human Interface Technology; click on Search
. Note how many hits there are:
- Human Interface Technology ...........................
- Go to the Search drop-down at the top of the screen and select Quick
- Repeat the above process, typing in the word Gaming. Note how many hits there are:
Combining searches (You now need to overlap the different parts of the search)
- On the top of the main search page, click on Results and then the View All Results button. This will show your Search History . This shows all the searches you have done in this session. Go to the box marked Combine Searches. Then enter #1 AND #2 . Click on
- How many results have you retrieved? …………….
- It is possible to refine your results, by using the options listed in the box on the left-hand side of the screen.Select one of the options and then click on the Limit to button. You should see that the number of items returned has been reduced.
- You will see that the returned entries include the options to look at the abstract and where available also give you access to the Full Text. Click on the Full Text button to download a PDF or HTML format of an article.
Saving your results
To save only the items you are interested in you will first need to create a Personal Account.
To save the items you can tick the boxes. Make your selections from the options offered in the Select: section of the screen. Then click on the Save to Folder icon 
. You will be prompted to log in. Once you have done this you will be asked to select either your existing folder or to create a new one.
You can also use the Select: section to download your results to your reference management software ie EndNote Online or EndNote Desktop using the Download option.
. Note how many hits there are:
. You will be prompted to log in. Once you have done this you will be asked to select either your existing folder or to create a new one.
