Articles in an instant

We know that leafing through twenty one years of Building Services Journal to find articles is no mean task. We also know that it is easier for readers to ring up the editorial desk in the expectation that a hazy rememberance of things past will be enough to get chapter and verse. Sadly, however diverse our talents, total recall is not one of them.

Which is why even the magazine’s editorial staff rely heavily on the BSRIA electronic index. Formerly a simple MS-DOS program, the index has been relaunched on CD-Rom as a Windows Access 2000 program. A smarter search engine gives references for all the articles carried in BSJ, from September 1978 to December 1999.

The CD comes with full setup and re-start instructions to enable installation of the index. A 133 Mhz processor should suffice, but you will need about 200 Mb of free disk space for the index and, of course, at least Windows 95.

As usual with Windows-based programs, the set-up routine will place icons on your desktop, which you then click on to open the index. Note that you won’t need the CD once the index is on your hard disk.

Clicking on a binoculars icon on the start-up screen gets you access to the search engine. Here you can search for a word or a phrase and see the results in a table format. If you can’t find the article, you can go back to the search engine and do a second level search, widening the criteria by adding words or, if the first search threw up too many entries, narrowing the search by excluding terms. A good example would be ‘theatres’, but excluding ‘operating theatres’. The resulting table then lists the relevant articles by article title and author, and gives a short abstract.

It is also possible to browse the index just by author. It’s not the best way to find an article by a prolific writer, but it’s quicker to find articles by specialist authors, who may have only penned one or two items over the years.

This screen is available by clicking on a books icon on the search engine screen. The search engine will recognise partial name spellings, like ‘mar’ for Marsh or ‘bun’ for Bunn.

And all this for just £18 plus vat. BSRIA does not restrict the use of the Index – practices can run it on more than one machine.

Two minor but important things to remember: As the Windows help menu is not enabled, it’s best to print off the ‘read-me’ file from the CD. Have a skip through this before using the index.

Second, the Windows Access program can effectively lose your internet bookmarks. When re-booting your machine after setting up the program, Windows will invoke the Internet Connection Wizard. To protect your current settings simply close the Wizard without setting up an internet connection.

This program is so good, Building Services Journal has decided to do away with its printed annual index. The BSRIA will be issuing updates every spring via the CIBSE and BSRIA websites.