I'm posting this message since it may save a few other people from wasting some time like I have done in the last few days.
In the latest issue of Business Standards, the magazine which BSI send round to all subscribers, there is a splash article about BSI's new 'online' service which will allow the downloading of 'thousands' of BS standards in PDF format from their web site. As usual for articles in Business Standards, the magazine contains a great deal of waft but damn all useful information about the service (such as what's available and how much it will cost). Great, I thought, at last BSI has got their act together and I can download the standards I need when I need them. So long as there's no premium to pay over the paper copy cost, that would be really good, thinks I. Turns out not to be the case. Actually what is being provided is on-line access to the Technical Indexes CD-ROM service. To gain access to standards on line, you have to subscribe to one of the modules of standards (for a price of several thousand pounds) and you can then download only standards from that module. Also, if my experience is anything to go by, either the standards they've processed so far are really obscure, or the search engine used to locate standards doesn't work. I tried entering 'environmental' and 'machinery' and no hits came up in either case. So, for those of us who (a) don't have two or three thousand pounds to spend on a subscription and/or (b) are never quite sure which standards might be required, the services is useless, and it's back to the telephone for ordering paper copies. Maybe BS will discover what its small customers really want someday, but don't hold your breath... Nick. --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators).
