Inspire Beta: New Interface to SPIRES database

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:49:47 +0100

A colleague mentioned today that the front page of the venerable SPIRES database of High Energy Physics papers is now promoting the new Inspire interface which was announced a few years ago.

The website for the current beta phase of the project is http://inspirebeta.net.

It is unclear to me whether “Beta” is part of the site name, as suggested by the URL and the text on the INSPIRE page, or whether this is just the beta phase of the INSPIRE project as the SPIRES homepage seems to imply. It would certainly be an odd decision to use a different URL for the beta phase and force everyone to change bookmarks, references in blogs, literature etc., once the beta phase is over.

These are quick first impressions because I haven’t had much time to use the new service. First off it is fast. Very fast. So fast that when searching for my name INSPIRE claims that the “Search took 0.00 seconds”. It feels almost instantaneous. This might be because of a light load before the hordes using SPIRES are switched over. It is certainly an improvement on the interminable and often futile stretches of time needed with the SPIRES engine.

Getting to grips with web based research tools

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:40:28 +0100

Every day I use web-based tools in my research. Some are specifically designed for scientific research, but some are just general purpose tools. It continually surprises me when other students and more established researchers have not heard of the many different ways the web can help research. This list is not meant to be exhaustive so please let me know if there are any tools you use that deserve a mention.

spires on IanHuston.net

Inspire Beta: New Interface to SPIRES database

Getting to grips with web based research tools