SilverPlatter Guide


Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide: FSC Bibliographic Database (FSVC)

Guide Index:
Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide
Introduction to Fire Service College (FSC) Library Database
Fields in Fire Service College (FSC) Library Database
Search Examples
Stopwords
Using Limit Fields
Using the Index to Find an Author
Copyright Statement

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Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide

Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide, produced by Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd, contains TWO major collections -
The Full Text Collection and the Bibliographic Collection in eleven databases.

The four Full Text Collection databases are:

1. Acts of the UK Parliament relevant to fire, health, safety and environment for the wider fire industry.  The text is in Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) Format.

2. Statutory Instruments of the UK Parliament relevant to fire, health, safety and environment for the wider fire industry.  The text is in Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) Format.

3. Legislation of the Council, Commission and Parliament of the European Communities relevant to fire, health, safety and environment for the wider fire industry.  The text is in Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) Format.

4. Publications from other organisations relevant to fire, health, safety and environment for the wider fire industry.  The text is in Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) Format.

The seven Bibliographic Collection databases are:

5. LPC Centre for Risk Sciences Bibliographic Database (formerly the BRE FLAIR and LPC Centre for Risk Sciences Bibliographic Databases)

6. FSS Fire bibliographic database

7. FSC bibliographic database

8. FRI International Bibliography of Wildland Fire database

9. ANPI bibliographic database

10. British Standards Bibliographic Database of Fire and Fire related Standards

11. ODPM-DFT Bibliographic Fire Database

For WebSPIRS users, the following link displays the Database Table of Contents:
http://www.sheilapantry.com/fulltext/default.asp?product=frrs
We recommend Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+ to view these full text documents.

Note: SGML formatted full text allows the document to be displayed in a style as close to the paper original as possible.

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An Introduction to FSC Bibliographic Database

Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide is produced by Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd.

The FSC Bibliographic Database, produced by the Fire Service College Library contains a range of worldwide references with an emphasis on all aspects of fire management principles and practices.  The database also contains an extensive collection of historical records of interest to researchers.

In addition, there are references to FSC's own publications, reports, incident reports including Fire Research and Management (incorporating the Journal of the Fire Service College).  The extensive collection includes reports, information papers, digests, research reports, books, journal articles, and conference proceedings.

The Fire Service College Library
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, GL56 0RH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1608 650831 ext 338   Fax: +44 (0)1608 651788

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Fields in FSC Bibliographic Database

FSC Bibliographic Database contains the following fields, listed in alphabetical order.  Click the long field name to see a definition of the field along with an example of how to use it in a search.  Highlighted fields are limit fields.

Label Field Name   Label Field Name
AB  Abstract    NT

Notes

AN

Accession Number

  PT

Publication Type

AU

Author

  PY

Publication Year

CA Corporate Author   SE

Series

DE

Descriptor

  SG Subject Group
ED

Editor

  SO

Source

IB

International Standard Book Number

  TI

Title

IS

International Standard Serial Number

  UD

Update Date

JN

Journal Name

     

There is also a special subset of fields, Citation (CITN), a brief record which defaults to the following: TI, AU and SO fields.  Use Citation to display, print, or save only these fields for a set of records.

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Label Field Name
AB Abstract
OSHA in ab

 

The AB field gives a brief summary of the document.  Can search for words or phrases in the abstracts field.

Note that you can search using either capitals or lower case.

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AN Accession Number
(a limit field)
J14536 in an
an=J14536
 

Each record in the FSC bibliographic database is assigned a unique Accession Number.  This allows you to retrieve a specific record at any time.

Note that you can search using either capitals or lower case.

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AU Author
whitley in au
whitley* in au
whitley-warren in au
 

The AU field indicates the personal authors of the document.  Each author is listed last name first, followed by a hyphen and the first name or initial.

Using the Index to Find an Author

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CA Corporate Author
audit commission in ca
fire service college in ca
 

The CA field indicates the corporate authors of the document.  The CA field identifies organisations or corporations as authors.

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DE
Descriptor
training in de
fire service in de
 

The DE field contains index terms (descriptors) controlled vocabulary that describes the record.  Search the DE field in isolation, combine with other fields, e.g.

fire service in de and heat stress in ti

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ED
Editor
pantry in ed
 

Editor field helps in searching for documents which are edited by an individual or individuals.

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IB International Standard Book Number
0861084209 in ib
 

The IB field lists the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) a ten digit unique number.

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IS International Standard Serial Number
0379-7112 in is
 

The IS field lists the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) an eight digit unique number.

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JN Journal Name
(a limit field)
fire-engineer in jn
jn=fire-prevention
 

The JN field contains the name of the journal that the article is taken from.

If the name of the journal you are looking for is more than one word, use hyphens between each word, as in the above examples.

Alternatively, search the Journal Name index.

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NT Notes
supersedes in nt
edition in nt
 

The Notes field gives additional information.

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PT Publication Type
(a limit field)
book in pt
pt=video
 

The Publication Type field gives the type of publication, for example book or journal article.

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PY Publication Year
(a limit field)
1990 in py
py=1990
 

The PY field indicates the year in which the document was originally published.

You can search the PY field with the following operators, as well as with in and =:

Symbol Operation Performed Example
<
less than

py<1991

 
>
greater than 

py>1992

<=
less than or equal to

py<=1990

>=
greater than or equal to

py>=1992

-
within a range

py=1991-1993

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SE Series
fire service manual in se
brigade command course in se
 

The Series field gives details of the series to which the publication appears.

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SG Subject Group
fire prevention in sg
building laws in sg
 

This Subject Group field gives details of the subject headings assigned to the publication which are not found elsewhere.  Assists in bringing together similar documents.

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SO Source
stationery office in so
loss prevention council in so
home office in so
 

The SO field gives details of the publication not found elsewhere, such as the publisher, place of publication.

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TI Title
fire service in ti
heat stress in ti
 

The TI field provides the title of the document.

Search the title field in isolation, or combine with other fields, e.g.

fire service college research day in ti and py=1998

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UD Update Code
(a limit field)
199806 in ud
ud=199806

 

The UD field indicates the date of the edition of the FSC database when the electronic version of the document first appeared.  Please note that the update date may have no relation to the actual publication date of the 'hard copy' version of the document.

The format of the date is YYYYMM, so that June 1998 will be 199806.

The field is a range-searchable limit field.

There is no need to use the update date to search the whole database.  In the absence of this limit field, the entire database will be searched on default.

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CITN Citation
 

Title  (TI)
Author  (AU)
Source  (SO)

The Citation serves as an easy way to display, print, or save only these fields for a set of records.

Note that not all the records have data appearing in the author field.

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Limit Fields

The limit fields listed below are specially indexed fields that have relatively few possible values.  They allow you to limit your searches to records of a particular characteristic, such as year of publication.

Accession Number (AN)
Publication Type (PT)
Journal Name (JN)
Publication Year (PY)
Update Date (UD)

You can search these fields with in or =.  For example, to retrieve documents originally published in 1990, type:

1990 in py  or  py=1990

In addition to in and =, the following operators may be used in PY and UD fields:

Symbol Operation Performed Example
<
less than

py<1990

>
greater than 

py>1991

<=
less than or equal to

py<=1989

>=
greater than or equal to

py>=1992

-
within a range

py=1990-1992

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Search Examples

The following examples demonstrate how to search the FSC database.  These examples are not exhaustive, but do illustrate several search techniques.  It is important to note that, although all examples are given in lowercase, WinSPIRS is not case-sensitive; whether your search terms are entered in upper- or lower-case, the same records will be retrieved.

Example 1
Find the articles written by Whitley.  The authors' names appear in the Author (AU) field and are hyphenated with 
the last name first.  The best way to search for an author is by selecting the name from the Index.

1. Look up Whitley in the Index
2. Select Whitley-Warren and then start the search.

Example 2
Search for articles about  flame spread

1.  Enter the term flame-spread in de

You can specify the Descriptors (DE) field because the term is part of the controlled terms list. Use hyphens to 
focus your search.  Use without hyphens to enlarge your search. 

Example 3
Search for records about the environment.

1.  Enter the term environ*

Use the truncation symbol (*) to search for all variations of the root term "environment", "environmental", 
"environmentally", etc.  Searching with truncation lets you retrieve records containing variations of your term.

2.  Combine the results with a search for and protection

Beginning the search request with the and operator automatically adds it to the previous search. The resulting 
search retrieves records containing both the variations of the term "environment" and the term "protection."

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Stopwords in FSC Database

Words of little intrinsic meaning that appear too frequently to be useful in searching text are known as "stopwords".  You can not search for the following stopwords by themselves, but you can include them within phrases:

a

and at by
for from in is
of on the to
with      

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Using the Index to Find an Author

To locate an author, look up the last name in the index.  A segment of the index beginning with the author's last name will be listed; included are all variations of the name that appear in the database.  For example, if you look up Gray, David, you will find David Gray listed.

Select and search for the appropriate variations.

Alternatively you can search for an author in the Author (AU) field.

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Combining Searches

Beginning a search request with an operator (and, not, or, with, near, or in) automatically combines that request with the previous one.

Example 1
For instance, if the search you just completed is fire training searching for will give you the same results as if you searched as one search step for fire and training

Example 2
Similarly, the search fire and  training  followed by the search in ti is the same as fire training in ti.

Example 3
Build a search using the OR operator to combine synonymous terms:
(hazardous or toxic or dangerous or poisonous) and fire

Example 4
Combine two words or phrases using the AND operator:
fire  and training

Example 5
Or restrict the search to selected fields:
fire  in ti and training in de

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Truncation and Wildcards

You can use the truncation symbol (*) as a substitute for any string of zero or more characters in your search term.  For example, the search pollut* retrieves any record containing "pollutant", "pollutants", "pollution", "polluted", etc.

You can use the wildcard symbol (?) as a substitute for one character or none.  For example, the search m?cdonald retrieves records containing "McDonald" or "MacDonald".

wom?n retrieves records containing "woman" or "women".

The truncation and wildcard symbols can be used anywhere in your search term, except as the first character.

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Field-specific Searching

You can use field-specific searching to focus searches.  For example, to find documents whose titles include the words 'fire safety' and 'sport', enter the search:

(fire safety and sport) in ti

Note that, without the brackets, the search above would find documents which had 'fire safety'
anywhere in them and 'sport' in the title.

There is at least one example of a field-specific search in each of the guide texts for the individual fields.

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Using Limit Term Indexes

Some database fields are limit fields, which are specially indexed fields with relatively few possible values.  They allow you to limit your searches to records of a particular characteristic, such as publication year.

The limit term indexes are available via the Index function (click the Index button on the button bar and then the Change... button), which lets you display the Available Indexes dialog box from which you can choose another Index.

The following indexes are available in this database:-

AN   Accession Number
PT   Publication Type
JN   Journal Name
PY   Publication Year
UD   Update Date

To look up a term, type it in the Index: text entry area. As you type, the Index Terms area scrolls to the closest match to your typing.

Highlight multiple terms by holding down the [Ctrl] key and clicking on additional terms or holding down the mouse button and dragging over the terms you want to highlight.
When you click the Search button, WinSPIRS goes to the Search screen and searches for all of the terms you selected individually and then combines them with the or operator.

If you wish to enter more than one word, remember to use hyphens rather than spaces between the words.

Limiting Searches: You can also access these indexes by clicking the Limit button after a search which can then be limited or focused on a series or group, for example.

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Copyright Statement

Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide
Fire Service College (FSC) Library Bibliographic Database

Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide is produced by Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd.

The FSC Bibliographic Database, produced by the Fire Service College Library contains a range of worldwide references with an emphasis on all aspects of fire management principles and practices.  The database also contains an extensive collection of historical records of interest to researchers.

In addition, there are references to FSC's own publications, reports, incident reports including Fire Research and Management (incorporating the Journal of the Fire Service College).  The extensive collection includes reports, information papers, digests, research reports, books, journal articles, and conference proceedings.

The Fire Service College Library
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, GL56 0RH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1608 650831 ext 338   Fax: +44 (0)1608 651788

Copyright, The Fire Service College, 1970 to present.  All Rights Reserved.

Copyright, Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd., Fire, Emergency and Preparedness Worldwide, 2005.  All Rights Reserved.

Copyright Search and Retrieval Software, 1990 to present, SilverPlatter International N.V.  All rights reserved.

The SilverPlatter quarter arc logo, SilverPlatter and ERL are trademarks of SilverPlatter International N.V. registered in one or more countries. The ERL-compliant logo, SPIRS, MacSPIRS, WinSPIRS, WebSPIRS and UNIXSPIRS are trademarks of SilverPlatter International N.V.

The Subscriber may use the Fire Service College Database for research purposes only, and may not publish, reproduce, transmit, store in any information retrieval system, or otherwise make available or sell the disc or its contents, whether in hard copy, electronically transmitted or any other form, and whether for commercial, educational or other purposes, other than for its own internal purposes or otherwise in accordance with the Subscription and License Agreement.

FSC uses its best efforts to ensure that Fire Service College Bibliographic Database contains an accurate representation or interpretation of the original material from which the Database was drawn, but neither FSC nor Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd nor SilverPlatter International, N.V. or its affiliates (collectively, "SilverPlatter") shall be held responsible for any damage, claim or expense incurred by a Subscriber or user as a result of its use or reliance upon the Database.

NEITHER SHEILA PANTRY ASSOCIATES LTD, THE FIRE SERVICE COLLEGE, OR SILVERPLATTER MAKES ANY REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES AS TO MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IN CONNECTION WITH THE DATABASE, ERL TECHNOLOGY, THE SPIRS SOFTWARE, THE GUIDE FILES, INDEXES OR SUPPORTING FILES.  SILVERPLATTER, SHEILA PANTRY ASSOCIATES LTD AND THE FIRE SERVICE COLLEGE SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL SUCH WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS.  NEITHER SILVERPLATTER, SHEILA PANTRY ASSOCIATES LTD OR THE FIRE SERVICE COLLEGE SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OR OTHER CLAIMS AND DEMANDS ARISING OUT OF USE OF THIS PRODUCT OR THE DATA CONTAINED THEREIN.  IN NO EVENT SHALL SILVERPLATTER, SHEILA PANTRY ASSOCIATES LTD OR THE FIRE SERVICE COLLEGE BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR INDIRECT DAMAGES, OR FOR "LOST PROFITS", EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.

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Guide Revised November 21, 2005

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