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Serious Engineering Requires a Serious Engineering Database: Try Compendex

by Ken Winter on 2022-10-12T12:51:56-04:00 in Construction, Engineering, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Management & Leadership, Materials, Multimodal, Pavements, Planning, Project Management, Research, Safety & Security, Structures | 0 Comments

Screen capture showing the new Compendex quick start guide.

With 30,000 new records added a week, Compendex is the gold standard for peer-reviewed research on engineering topics of interest.

 

Compendex (sometimes called Ei Compendex) is widely regarded as the most currrent and most comprehensive engineering literature database available today, with 190 distinct engineering disciplines and more than 20 million records selected by professional indexers. 

 

Translation: If you need to search with confidence for engineering research that is relevant, accurate and of exceptional quality, Compendex is your new secret weapon!

 

While some VDOT employees and research scientists may use it frequently, the name "Compendex" may be less familiar if you've been out of school for a while.  Or, you may remember it by the name of the search interface it utilizes, which is called "Engineering Village."

 

To help clear up confusion and get you started on the right foot, we put together this handy Compendex Quick-Start Guide, which covers the basic search features, tips for reading a full-record display screen, and most importantly, how to link from a promising citation to the full-text document, a process that may transfer you to one of a dozen or more other VDOT subscriptions. 

 

Bottom line, whatever kind of engineering you need information about, you can find it in Compendex. And by following the instructions and instructional videos in our new guide, you stand a great chance of being transferred with a couple clicks from the perfect citation to a paper offering solutions to your precise engineering challenge, from other resources VDOT has a subscription to, such as: Transportation Research Record, ACI Structural or Materials journals, ASCE JournalsASTM journals, ICE Journals, Knovel or similar engineering resources.

 

On the off chance that you can't connect to the full-text you need, please don't forget that any citation to a published work you CAN'T find the full text of quickly, you can always toss our way for fulfillment. We find, download and deliver hundreds and hundreds of articles and papers to busy VDOT employees every single year. 

 

We suggest you use this online document request form, but you could call, e-mail, or even live chat with us to place your request! 

 

The key thing to know is that you never have to visit the library in person to benefit. Our databases are online, our subscriptions are online and WE are online...because YOU are online! 
 

Ken Winter
(434) 962-8979
VDOT Research Library


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