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

2. Go to university home page – www.gre.ac.uk – and click on ‘student portal’ www.gre.ac.uk

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

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

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

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

7. Go to the MyAthens page to access the databases

8. Click on Resources to see list of databases available

9. Click on database name from the alphabetical list

10. Technical Indexes Home page – for all databases

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

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

13. Select Construction Information Service by clicking on “view product”

14. 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

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

16. Pull-down menu shows article list

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

27. 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

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

29. 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 !

30. 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

31. 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

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

33. 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

34. Go into My favourites to go into and create folders

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

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

37. 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

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