Standards are used in engineering to ensure anything you make or design meets certain requirements, and in other fields such as computing to ensure best practice and service quality.
Standards often contain technical specifications and guidelines for manufacture. Many companies and countries have their own standard guidelines, while ISO standards are agreed internationally. They may relate to performance, design, specifications, etc.
Some standards are available on Library Search:
Otherwise, search the relevant database such as British Standards Online (BSOL).
Provides access to British standards and international and European standards that have been adopted as British standards in the subjects of civil engineering, fluid mechanics, energy, and more.
It also includes ASTM standards and ISO standards that haven't been adopted as British standards. BSOL also holds BSI Publicly Available Specifications, as well as BSI books.The Eurocodes are a new set of European structural design codes for building and civil engineering works. They will be used for European public works and are set to become the de-facto standard for the private sector - both in Europe and worldwide.Please follow the link on the BSI homepage and click on BSOL subscribers in the yellow box on the right hand side of the page to access documents from the BSI construction module
Provides access to all active standards from the American Society for Testing and Materials, as well as historical and withdrawn standards with comparisons.
Also includes ASTM Journals, peer-reviewed articles, selected Technical Papers (STPs) in e-book format and digital videos of test methods.
Contains full text of almost one-third of the world’s current literature in electrical engineering, communications, and computer science. Includes highly-cited peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and standards.
Also provides access to content from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), as well as some archive material from the 1880s.
Some advice on referencing standards can be found on Cite Them Right Online in the Technical and Scientific Information section.
To be patentable an idea must be new, be innovative and ideally have an industrial application. In the UK patents are granted by the Intellectual Property Office and are only valid in the UK.
The largest abstract and citation database of international peer-reviewed literature: journals, books and conference proceedings. It also has smart tools to track, analyse and visualise research.