The Availability (AA) field, when present, indicates where copies of the original document can be obtained. It also conveys information about the medium in which the document is available (such as microfiche).

Price information is included only when it is available in the document itself or in an accompanying leaflet, invoice, or other record supplied by the publisher or supplier. When both a hardcover and a paperback price appear, both are included.

The Abstract (AB) field summarizes the content of the document and may also provide a description of the background, methods, results, and/or conclusions.

The Astronomical Object (AO) field contains designations for astronomical objects discussed in the bibliographic item to which the record refers. 

Inspec follows the guidelines produced by the International Astronomical Union.  A thesaurus-type document entitled "Nomenclature of Astronomical Catalogue Designations" is available from Inspec.

The Author (AU) field contains the names of the authors or editors of an item.  In the case of a patent, the field contains the names of the inventors.  The format for authors is Smith AE, or Smith A.

Enter the last name, or if it is a common name, enter the last name and the first initial.  If you are unsure of the spelling of the last name (macdonald or mcdonald), enter one version and then scroll through the list of names to find the other.

The Abstract Number (AX) field contains the number(s) within the various sections of the INSPEC database. 

These sections are:

In the case of sections A, B and C, their numbers are those assigned to the item as published in one of the Inspec Abstracts Journals. The section of the Database in which items occur may be identified by the first letters of the Classification Codes. An item may appear in more than one section, and in such circumstances this group may contain more than one Abstract Number.

The Corporate Author/Issuing Organization (CA) field contains the name of the issuing organization for a dissertation or a report.

Enter the single most descriptive word in a corporate author's name, for example, enter Harvard rather than Harvard University. Consider both full spellings and abbreviations.

The Classification Codes (CC) field contains the appropriate code or codes from the Inspec Classification.  Codes begin with a letter identifying the section of the Classification in which they appear. Any item  may appear in more than one section. 

Sections include:

The numerical Classification Codes and the phrases that describe them are each stored separately in the CC index. Searching A9650D.cc. or "Interplanetary dust".cc. will retrieve the same documents. You may also use the Tools/Classification Codes option to view and select from the hierarchical list of codes with corresponding terms.

You can search all of the codes within a section with the following command: a.cc. Searching a.cc. will return all of the codes within the Physics section.

Use the Classification Codes Words (CW) field to search individual words.

The CODEN (CD) field contains the full six character CODEN, including check digit, for the Source and the Translated Source. The CODEN corresponds with the journal in the Source (SO) field. The CODEN for the Source (SO) and Translated Source (TS) can be viewed in the Translated Source (TS) field.

Conference Information [Word Indexed]
fuzzy logic.cf.
albuquerque.cf.

The Chemicals (CH) field, which first appears in 1987, contains data on the significant substances and material systems discussed in a paper. Organic substances are not covered by this field.

Search on either an entire chemical compound, or any chemical group that is a subset of that compound.  For example, search on H2S04 or simply search on S04 for all compounds containing S04.

Roles can be applied to compounds to indicate the number of elements in the compound. For example, to retrieve a binary system containing H2, enter  the compound followed by the appropriate code for the type of role in which you are interested.  For example,  h2-bin.ch. will search  for H2 as part of a binary system.  Or, search for H2 and use the Limit/Chemical Role menu to select a role.

Roles which can be used are:

The US Government Clearing House Number (CL) field contains the identification number assigned to a report by the US Government Clearing House for Federal Scientific and Technical Information. This number is usually of the form 'PB' or 'AD' followed by a variable length serial number.

The Pre-1995 Subject Headings (DE) field displays subject headings no longer used in the current INSPEC Thesaurus, but that were used at some time in the past.

These terms will not appear in the Thesaurus, but can be searched in the Subject Heading (SH) field or the Heading Word (HW) field.

The Digital Object Identifier (DO) field contains the registered DOI for electronic documents.

The Date of Publication (DP) field contains the date the article or monograph was published as provided by the publisher.

The Editor (ED) field contains the names of the editors of an item. The format for editors is Smith AW, or Smith A.

Enter the last name, or it if is a common name, enter the last name and the first initial. If you are unsure of the spelling of the last name (macdonald or mcdonald), enter one version and then scroll through the list of names to find the other.

Sometimes you may wish to retrieve every subject heading (current or discontinued) that contains a particular word; this is done by searching a single word in the Heading Word (HW) field.

You can also view current subject headings containing a particular word by using the Permuted Index under the Tools option.

The Author/Editor Affiliation (IN) field contains the primary author's or editor's affiliation.

Enter the single most descriptive word in an institution ("Harvard", not "Harvard University"). Consider both full spellings and abbreviations.

The Inspec Update Code consists of year and issue elements. It appears in YYYYIII format.  It specifies the Inspec update in which the  record was released.

This field also displays a record's amended date. The amended date appears in YYYYMMDD format.

The Journal Name (JN) field contains the full name of the journal in which the article was published. The Journal Name displays in the Source (SO) field.

Journal names are indexed as phrases, so enter enough letters of the journal name to locate the name in the index. For example, "human comp" for "Human Computer Interaction."

The Journal Word (JX) index contains individual words from every journal name in Inspec.  This field is used to retrieve every occurrence of a journal that contains a particular word, such as "lasers."

The Numerical Data (ND) field, which first appears in 1987, contains structured numeric data.  The data is more likely to be operating or experimental parameters rather than measured values or experimental results.  Only data which is in the title or abstract or is encountered by the indexer in writing the abstract is considered for inclusion.

To limit to articles discussing a particular type (such as Velocity) without actually searching on the actual numeric value, use the Limit to Numeric Data option.

For records where the English language cover-to-cover translation journal is indexed, the Original Source (OS) field contains the full title of the original journal, along with the Date of Publication (DP), Volume (VO), Issue/Part (IP), Pagination (PG), ISSN (IS) and CODEN (CD) of the original when available.

The Publication Type (PT) field defines the type of document to which the bibliographic record refers.

All records in the database are assigned one of the following publication types:

The Report Number (RN) field contains the primary identification number of a report.  This is normally the number given to the report by the issuing organization (not the US Government Clearing House Number). Inspec treats IEEE Standards as reports.  If no report number is available, the field contains the word "unnumbered."

The Report Number field is word indexed so any part of the report number can be searched separately, if desired.

The Subject Heading (SH) index contains controlled index terms assigned to the document from the INSPEC Thesaurus. Records exist only for current and deleted full terms and not for lead-in terms.

Subject Headings are entered into the index as phrases and should be searched as they appear in the published INSPEC Thesaurus or as they appear in the Thesaurus display, which can be access by using the Tools/Thesaurus Option.

The Source (SO) field displays all of the basic information needed to locate a citation, including full Journal Name (JN), Publisher (PU), Volume (VO), Issue/Part (IP), Pagination (PG), Country of Publication (CP), Date of Publication (DP), and Year of Publication (YR). The town or city of publication is also included, but mainly applies to books and conference proeedings.

The Title (TI) field contains the title of the bibliographic record, i.e. title of journal paper, book, book chapter, conference proceedings, conference paper, patent, dissertation, report or report section.

The Treatment (TR) field can be used to enhance searching when a search on subject descriptive data elements is not enough. Treatments can be searched directly using the phrase or Limit option.

Nine types of treatment codes can be assigned to a document. The treatments types are:

The Treatment Field was first used in 1971.

For records where the original source journal is indexed, the Translated Source (TS) field contains the full title of the English language cover-to-cover translation journal, along with the Date of Publication (DP), Volume (VO), Issue/Part (IP), Pagination (PG), ISSN (IS) and CODEN (CD) of the translation when available.

A Text Word (TW) field is an alias for all of the fields in the database which contain text words and which are appropriate for a free-text subject search. 

The Textword fields in INSPEC include Title (TI), Abstract (AB) and Key Phrase Identifiers (ID).

The URL (UR) field contains the Internet Uniform Resource Locator of electronic documents and document collections URLs that are believed to be stable.

Each part of the URL and file name is indexed, so enter the most descriptive word or words in a URL or file name.

The Year (YR) index contains the year in which an article or monograph was published.  The year is indexed as four digits.

This field is displayed as part of the Source (SO) field.