by Linda Dumper
Linda Dumper joined TWI in 1975 as Library Assistant. Following a two year absence, to qualify and widen her experience in the library field, she returned to TWI as Deputy Librarian in 1979.
As Manager, Information Services, Linda is responsible for the development of the Library and the Weldasearch database. She has spent many years helping TWI Industrial and Professional members, as well as TWI staff, with a wide variety of enquiries.
This year is the year of the Workplace Library. Linda Dumper outlines the facilities available to TWI members from the Information Services section, and suggests future developments in information provision.
'I've been trying to find an answer for more than a day, and you've done it in 15 minutes'.
What better reason is there for trying out TWI's library than this comment received from a satisfied user?
Do you make the most of the facilities available to help you discover information through your membership of TWI?
If not, next time you need help and don't know where to find it, just call Information Services.
The Information Services comprise the library; production of TWI's bibliographic database, Weldasearch, and searching online sources of information for staff and members.
The role of the service is not only to provide information directly to Industrial Members, but to build and maintain, in discussion with the research staff, a collection of information that backs up the requirements of the TWI staff who undertake enquiries, research and consultancy projects for Industrial Members of TWI. It also provides the only source available to Professional Members for obtaining photocopies and loans of books, journals and articles on all aspects of joining.
TWI Library
TWI houses the largest library in the western world devoted to joining technology, and receives requests from researchers and practitioners worldwide for loans, photocopies or answers to enquiries which can be met from its unique collection.
The current TWI library at Abington Hall was set up after the merger of the Institute of Welding and the British Welding Research Association (BWRA) in 1968, to form The Welding Institute, now TWI.
The library holds approximately 15,000 monographs (including books, reports, conference proceedings, pamphlets, staff papers, patents, reprints, translations and reference works), 450 current journals and about 200 old journal titles. It also has thousands of current and superseded standards, a collection of company literature for welding equipment and consumables, audiovisual material and CD-ROMs. It is open to TWI staff, Industrial and Professional Members of the Welding Institute, and members of the Welding & Joining Society who are all welcome to use its reading room.
Its role is to house not only published information produced by TWI, to make it available to Members, but also to bring together joining related information published worldwide. This has resulted in a comprehensive collection of knowledge on joining organised to make it accessible to Staff and Members either directly or through the Information Services staff.
The earliest journal and monograph stock dates from the early 1900s, though the library has grown most rapidly since the 1970s. TWI holds an archive of welding and joining publications, and also standards that are not available elsewhere, but are crucial to the fabrication and repair of manufactured products and structures of all types. The collection of company literature on welding equipment and consumables is unique, dating back to the 1950s or earlier. It includes files of trade names and manufacturers which allow us to trace products past and present. The Library also holds a large collection of materials identification reference works, enabling us to trace materials by either their standard grade or their trade name.
Over the years subject coverage has widened, as an ever increasing variety of materials have to be joined by many different methods, and those joints tested with increasing stringency. The major subjects covered now include: joining of metallic and non-metallic materials; brazing and soldering; adhesive bonding; mechanical fastening; metallic and non-metallic materials science, including ceramics and plastics; joining related engineering; non-destructive testing; corrosion; health and safety, especially the effects of fume; quality assurance and quality control.
Weldasearch
As the volume of literature on welding increased during the 1960s, the production of complete reading lists from the Library stock became too time consuming. As a result Weldasearch was set up as a publicly available database of abstracts from the welding literature worldwide. The database has now been running for over 30 years, and contains around 160,000 references taken from all types of published material. It covers all aspects of welding technology for a wide variety of materials, both metallic and non-metallic, and engineering aspects of joining. In addition an abstracts journal, Welding Abstracts, and a monthly updating service, Weldasearch Select, are offered.
The database is available on several online hosts, such as Questel-Orbit, Fiz-Technik and EINS (Cineca). It is also offered as a web based search system on TWI's JoinIT TM site, and through the CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) Materials Sciences Collection.
For further information on how to use any of these methods of using Weldasearch, e-mail weldasearch@twi.co.uk
Online Search Service
Although many Members are able to carry out either online or web based searches for themselves, there are many who value the online search service offered by TWI's Information Scientists. A call to the Weldasearch staff, or an e-mail to
weldasearch@twi.co.uk enables you to have a search done for you. This search will be charged to your company - the details will be explained to you before the search is undertaken.
Once you have the results of your search, many of the items listed will be available as photocopies or loans from TWI library. Call the library, or e-mail library@twi.co.uk for further details of this service.
Enquiries
Each year approximately 8,000 enquiries are received by TWI's Information Services staff by phone, e-mail, fax, letter and personal visits. Enquiries vary widely in their scope, ranging from a request for a complete bibliography of the research undertaken into a particular welding related subject to a simple enquiry for information on a welding consumable, or details of a grade of material from a standard.
What may appear a difficult problem to you may be something we deal with almost daily - you may only need joining information as a sideline to your major area of interest, while TWI's Information Service is dedicated to organising and accessing joining information for all its users.
Your request may result in a search from Weldasearch, providing you with a list of references, or a library catalogue print-out listing items relevant to your enquiry which you may wish to borrow, or we can guide you to web based sources that will help you. You may ask for information which can be faxed or e-mailed to you rapidly, such as details of a consumable, or a grade of material. We may be able to give you the answer immediately over the phone, like a chemical composition, or contact details for a manufacturer or supplier.
Whatever your enquiry, we will try to help you. If you are not sure which member of TWI staff to consult, ask to be put through to the library, and we will point you in the right direction. If you don't know where to go for some information, and maybe you don't have your own workplace Information Service, call us and we will help you find an answer, or refer you to a source that can help you.
Future Developments
TWI has increasingly become involved in looking at the most up to date methods of transferring information. Currently it is developing JoinIT a web-based information system which will make much of the information resulting from research carried out at TWI over the past fifty years available in a modern, and often interactive, form. Weldasearch is already available on this site, and we are currently installing a new library database, which should soon be available via JoinIT. This will enable you to browse the stock of TWI's library from your own desk. Other useful items produced by the library which are on the site already are listings of books on welding, a listing of the major standards in use in the joining industry, and a news service for the joining industry, updated every week. Further databases of general information are planned for the near future.
Whatever the system used to supply your answer, TWI is dedicated to satisfying your information requirements. From the early days of its Information Services it has been in the forefront of methods of information provision. The development of will enable TWI to continue its tradition of providing information to an international clientele by the most efficient means after the year 2000.
For any information needs, simply contact the library at library@twi.co.uk or Weldasearch at weldasearch@twi.co.uk or simply e-mail me at linda.dumper@twi.co.uk
