Information & Library Services A guide to using the Construction Information Service from IHS/Technical Indexes Alice Fulcher August 2006

Go to university home page – – and click on ‘student portal’

Use your university network username and password to login, in or outside the university

Go to the Library & Computing tab on the portal Click on Databases & Journals or (via Athens DA) then

Click on either of these to get to the Athens DA login

Use your same university username and password to login to Athens DA

Go to the MyAthens page to access the databases

Click on Resources to see list of databases available

Click on database name from the alphabetical list

Technical Indexes Home page – for all databases

Can do a quick search across all databases available, by typing term in box and press search

Results from Quick search – click result to see list of documents

Select Construction Information Service by clicking on “view product”

Top menu stays the same Links to popular documents Browse subjects Each area selected here will open in new window e.g.Access EMAP Simple search box Advanced search

Can access tutorials, database help, lists of reference documents in Precis

Pull-down menu shows article list

List of documents (with links) to documents cited in Building Regs. from Reference documents

Roundup briefings give up-to-date information about the construction industry, updated monthly

Selecting AJ+ from menus gives access to news, archives and lots of information – check the pull- down menus

If you go to sections such as Precis, which open in a new window, this message appears, so you do not get logged out

If you select a subject on the Home page to browse, get suggestions for narrowing search Total results display here

Select Publishers from top menu to get A-Z list Click on publisher to get list of publications included – then click to see document

Clicking on Help will give a menu of Help tips and hints

Some simple searches will come up with lots of records. Related phrases suggest ways of narrowing search Specify It gives references to product literature

Specify it results show trade names, suppliers and types of products

List of suppliers come up with symbol showing we cannot access documents – but click on name… …to get details & often web address

Advanced search allows searching by document number & publisher or series – good for BRE and British Standards. Restricts or pinpoints results. Click on title to get to document

Get further details about document, & often thumbnail picture of title page. By clicking on View document, agree to copyright conditions and see full text

If printing from a pdf file, only print 6 pages or so at a time – the computer sends all data to the printer before printing, so if there is too much, the printer will refuse to print !

In Advanced search, unless search term is uncommon, best to restrict to title & abstract – whole document will produce lots of hits Can select how to display results, and restrict search by years and section Can restrict search by date & section, & choose result display

Create your own preferences and folders of links by registering with My CIS Register for a new account, or log in to use existing account

When you register, details are kept on file. In the future, they are going to people if any document in their folders gets updated

You can set up preferences, so when you are logged in, you can display results how you want, search which sections you need, and see which news feed you like

Go into My favourites to go into and create folders

When looking at document list, can click here to add to your favourites

Select which folder to add document to, then click on Add to target folder

Document appears in folder. Another time, you can login to My CIS and call up document When searching, a “breadcrumb trail” shows, so you can click to go back in your search

When you logout, you can either go to another IHS database, or click to logout completely