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            New INSPEC service from BIDS and SilverPlatter
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BIDS and SilverPlatter, working in partnership, have been selected by the
JISC to host a national online INSPEC service for the UK Higher Education
community.  This new service will allow those engaged in engineering
research to take advantage of BIDS technical and support experience along
with SilverPlatter's’, powerful search software, user-friendly search
interface and new linking technologies.

INSPEC
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Produced by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, INSPEC is the leading
English-language bibliographic information service providing access to the
world's scientific and technical literature in physics, electrical
engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers
and computing, and information technology. Primary coverage is of journal
articles and papers presented at conferences, although significant books,
technical reports, and dissertations are also included.

More information about INSPEC can be found on the IEE website:
  http://www.iee.org.uk/publish/inspec/

BIDS
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BIDS is the longest-established and most heavily used of the
JISC-supported national bibliographic datacentres.  It already provides
access to a range of bibliographic databases, together with a freely
searchable full text service.  

The BIDS INSPEC service will have the major attraction of weekly updates,
and access control will be integrated with ATHENS before the end of 1998.

SilverPlatter
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SilverPlatter Information is a leading publisher of premium electronic
reference databases. With over 250 titles ranging from Scientific,
Technical & Medical to Business and General Reference, SilverPlatter
Information is the preferred choice of over 20,000 customers serving up to
10 million end users world-wide.  From its inception as the pioneer of
CD-ROM publishing, SilverPlatter Information now delivers authoritative
bibliographic and full content information using its world renowned web
enabled technologies, accessed via Internet, intranet, local and
commercially hosted servers.
 
As well as a Web interface (WebSpirs 3.1 and WebSpirs 4), support will
also be provided for the WinSpirs and MacSpirs client/server interfaces,
and Z39.50.  Extensive support is provided in the way of online and
downloadable guides and training materials. 

More information about SilverPlatter can be found at:
  http://www.silverplatter.com/

CHEST
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CHEST expects to finalise an agreement with IEE for Inspec within the
next few weeks, and for the agreement to start on 1 September 1998.
Further details are available at:
  http://www.chest.ac.uk/datasets/inspec/inspec-intro.html.

There are links from this page to a comparison of the different services.
This includes such details as frequency of update, interface, and price.

In the case of BIDS, the ex VAT charge to UK HE for the BIDS service will be
2,600 GBP pa, and there will be a 10% discount for sites that sign up
before 1st October 1998. It should be noted that the data is charged
for separately.  See the CHEST pages for more information on this.

Further information containing details of a free trial, and the
commencement of the full service will be circulated shortly.
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Terry Morrow (Marketing & Training)              E-mail:- [log in to unmask]
BIDS, University of Bath                 Telephone (direct-dial):- 01225-826277
BATH BA2 7AY, UK      BIDS URL: http://www.bids.ac.uk/      Fax :- 01225-826176
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