A world of information...at your fingertips

TWI Bulletin, July - August 2006

Best on the planet - an information service envied throughout the world's welding and joining community

Linda Dumper joined TWI as Deputy Librarian in 1979, became Librarian and eventually, in 1995, Manager, Information Services. She has responsibility for the delivery of library and database searching services to fit the requirements of all Members and TWI staff. Her special areas of expertise are copyright, market information and knowledge management.

To ensure that TWI remains at the forefront of technological developments in the joining world, the organisation supports a comprehensive information service for its staff, Industrial and Professional Members. As Linda Dumper reports, this facility has developed since the 1930s, and contains over 100 years' worth of books, journals, standards, reports, pamphlets, theses, patents and trade catalogues.

The challenge for the Information Services group is to keep improving the methods of making this information available to all users so that staff and Members spend less time searching for information and more time exploiting it.

Enquiry answering

The major task for the group, and the most satisfying for any information professional, is to answer enquiries from Members. Using the library stock and any other sources that can be accessed, we can help you to obtain a full response to your request.

The following are some of the main types of enquiry we can answer:

• Enquiries for welding related technology information

  A wide range of enquiries for subject literature in all areas of welding and related engineering and materials science is received. The depth of enquiry can differ greatly, and determines whether the response can be given by either an online search of Weldasearch ^® or other relevant databases, by consulting the library catalogue or by interrogating the TWI website's JoinIT ^® technical information.

  Taking the example of a recent enquiry on arc-air gouging, it is possible to find the publications available on the subject from the library catalogue, and items written by TWI staff are retrieved via the JoinIT technical information area of the website. However, to find all the papers written in journals or conferences and published worldwide, it would be necessary to search the Weldasearch database, which started in 1968.

• Product and grade searching

  The library staff receives many enquiries each year requesting help in identifying materials and consumables. The library has a variety of sources for finding this information covering standard grades and trade products.

• Suppliers of equipment and services

The library has many sources from which to identify suppliers of welding equipment and consumables and also suppliers of a variety of process services. For services their greatest expertise is within the UK and Europe, but information can be found for other countries.

The Information Services group also assists staff and members with market information in the joining industry. Access to databases and other sources of information, often via the Internet, enables the group to offer help in identifying companies in a particular field or finding trends about a particular industry sector.

Delivery of information to staff and Members

Several initiatives have been taken in recent years to ensure information continues to be made available using the most up-to-date methods possible. A variety of resources is being produced and maintained by the Information Services group for this purpose. These include:

• Library catalogue

  A central part of the library service is the maintenance of a detailed catalogue to facilitate rapid location of the stock. This catalogue has now been made available through the TWI Website ( http://www.twi.co.uk/libcat). It is possible to search for the author, title or subject you require and, from the list of items retrieved, to find their location in the library. You can then phone or e-mail the library with a request for a loan of the whole item, or a photocopy of part of the document as required. You can, also, visit the library in person.

• Completion of the library catalogue - a Heritage Lottery funded project

The library has, over the years, added to its collection the stock of the former London office and donations from eminent members of staff and figures from the welding world, such as Richard Weck and A A Smith. We have also been pleased to have been offered the collections from Member companies such as ESAB, which we have integrated into our stock, and we would be delighted to hear from any Members who can offer us valuable items to add to our library. TWI has also received donations from Professional Members retiring from full time work. It has long been our aim to integrate all these items into the library stock, and to add them all to the catalogue. When the library moved into the Alan Wells building, the opportunity arose to gather all this stock together into one building. We were successful in gaining Heritage Lottery Funding to allow us to re-fit the basement of the Alan Wells building with mobile bookshelves. In addition the funding enabled us to take on a temporary cataloguer, Ted Goodliffe, who has added around 10,000 items to the catalogue.

For part of the project members of the library staff were helped by two local former teachers, who have experience of preparing curriculum material in work packages, Jenny Peters and Helen Norris. They have produced four work packages for schoolchildren of various ages and for others interested in industrial history, based on material from the archive.

The subjects of these packages are: The history of the Abington Hall site; the history of TWI; the Liberty Ships; and the history of welding in shipbuilding. The packages will be mounted on a website linked to the TWI website,and are to be made available to the public before the end of 2006.

During the course of this work the staff of the library have welcomed children from the local Great Abington primary school to look at the Granta Park science park and TWI itself, and hope to work with them on the TWI site work package.

• Online searching

  Experienced information scientists are able to undertake complex online searches to produce search results precisely tailored to your requirements. Whilst an Internet search can result in a trawl through thousands of records to find what you need, an online search by an expert can give you around 25-50 items specifically on your subject.

• Weldasearch

  Weldasearch, the flagship product of Information Services, is a bibliographic database started in 1968. It now contains records of almost 200,000 items on welding and related processes published worldwide. It is estimated that this database has so far cost approximately £9.5 million to produce. It is unique in the subject area, and has many regular users in countries throughout the industrial world.

Members can carry out searches through the recently updated interface on the website.

You can make a choice of the items you want to see from the search, add them to a shopping basket for documents to be delivered, and e-mail this list from the website to TWI Library to fulfil your requests.

It is also possible to have a monthly 'profile' set up, whereby a search is carried out automatically on the subjects you are interested in, and you receive the results monthly via e-mail. This is currently organised by the Weldasearch team, but shortly you should be able to set up and maintain your profile yourself via Weldasearch on the website.

Currently the journal 'Welding Abstracts' is produced as a compilation of the latest items entered into the database, organised by subject and indexed by author, keywords and company names. Given the greatly improved methods of delivering information electronically, the current plan is to cease publication of the paper document and make it available as a printable pdf file on the Weldasearch database in the near future.

As part of the work being undertaken to make information held within TWI information services readily available to staff and members, TWI has been working on a project, MI21, in conjunction with the World Metal Index in Sheffield Central Library, IOM3, Namtec and Granta Design. This project is designed to make databases of metals and welding consumables available to TWI staff and members and the subscription-paying public.

TWI and World Metal Index both have around 50 years' worth of information, which is being transferred from a card based system to a computer database. This format will allow the user to identify metals or consumables from standard grade or trade name, and to discover similar grades, the standard to which a trade product conforms, any approvals for the products and manufacturer or supplier information. Approximately 11000 consumables and around 7000 metals have already been entered on the system. Currently these can be accessed only via the Information Services team, but in the near future there will be a database of consumables available to members via the TWI website, and the metals database will be available to subscribers, again via a link from the TWI website.

An example of an enquiry for which the database was used is a request for Lloyd's Register approved 316 stainless steel consumables. A list of the trade grades for which such an approval existed was sent to the enquirer.

Information for the Bulletin and the TWI website

The Information Services group initiated the original TWI website, and is deeply involved in the organisation of the site and production of up to date content. For the Bulletin the group produces the Net Gains, Inside Story and Bookshelf sections of the journal. For the website, the group provides information including lists of standards on welding and book lists on welding and related subjects. In addition the weekly industry and standards news files, taken from the latest publications and websites, are written by Information Services staff to meet the needs of industry.

Working with industry teams

TWI serves the needs of its member companies by working through teams set up to understand the various industry sectors involved. Information Services has a representative on each of the industry teams in order to understand the requirements of the teams and to be able to offer an information service tailored to the team. This also helps us to match the content of the news files to the requirements of each team.

Records management and corporate memory

It is not only external information in which the Information Services group is interested. There is also a need to improve and preserve the corporate memory within TWI. The group has responsibility for the organisation of the company archive and, over the past year, has been involved in a project to make details of all project reports available to staff at all the TWI facilities. An Information Interface for staff is also being planned, to enable them to access chosen high quality information resources in a structured way in order to assist them to work more efficiently and effectively.

What can we offer you?

TWI is able to offer to staff and Members an information service for the joining industry. It is the largest information service in welding and related technologies in the western world, uniquely providing a structured online catalogue and database in welding and joining technology, and offering a rapid document delivery service from its vast stock of publications.

The collection has been built up to respond to your needs, and TWI's information scientists and librarians are trained to answer your enquiries rapidly and accurately.

To take full advantage of this comprehensive resource, contact the following:

For library enquiries and loans or photocopies contact:

The general library e-mail address, library@twi.co.uk
John Ayres john.ayres@twi.co.uk (ext. 9284)
Joanne Cooper joanne.cooper@twi.co.uk (ext. 9209)
Lorna Laken lorna.laken@twi.co.uk (ext. 9457)
Martin Adams martin.adams@twi.co.uk (ext. 9228)

For searches on Weldasearch or any other online database contact:

The general Weldasearch e-mail address, weldasearch@twi.co.uk
Sheila Thomas sheila.thomas@twi.co.uk (ext. 9295)
Margaret Connell margaret.connell@twi.co.uk (ext. 9324)
Jackie Lloyd jackie.lloyd@twi.co.uk (ext. 9366)

For discussions concerning the service as a whole, and for market and business information, contact Linda Dumper linda.dumper@twi.co.uk, (ext. 9308).