What are the accession number formats used in Engineering Village?

The Chemical Business NewsBase (CBNB) contains alphanumeric accession numbers that begin with three letters (e.g., ‘TCD’) and consist of 10 digits.

Chimica contains 8-digit to 10-digit numeric accession numbers.

Compendex is a database of documents published between 1970 and the current year. For the current Compendex file, the accession number is a unique 13-digit or 14-digit number assigned to each record. The accession number increased from 13 to 14 digits for documents published around 2006. The first four digits of the accession number are the production year, and the fifth and sixth digits of the number represent the week (e.g., 01 - 52) that the record was produced. The remaining digits of the number are the record's identification number and have no inherent meaning.

Compendex Article in Press (AIP) documents contain a 10-digit to 14-digit alphanumeric number. From 2010 to September 3, 2014, Article in Press documents were assigned a temporary 10-digit accession number, such as IP12345678, which was replaced by a new 14-digit accession number upon publication of the final version. Thus, some older AIP documents that were not replaced by a final published version display a temporary accession number. As of September 4, 2014, Article in Press records were no longer assigned temporary accession numbers, but were assigned the same 14-digit accession number that is carried over to the final version of the document when it is published.

Preprint documents in Compendex contain a unique 11-digit accession number. The first four digits of the accession number in a preprint document are the production year, and the remaining digits are the identification number for the record.

Due to the loading of archives of conferences and standards with publication years before 1970, the database includes documents with much older publication years.

Your institution's account settings determine the exact start year you will see in the ‘Published’ year dropdown of the ‘Date’ tab when running a Compendex search query. This feature allows you to exclude documents with older publication years that may not be relevant to your specific institution.

The EI (Engineering Index) Backfile is a static archival database that includes digitized records of all printed volumes from The Engineering Index dating from 1884 to 1969. For this backfile, the accession number is a unique 11-digit number assigned to each backfile record. The first four digits of an Ei Backfile accession number represent the year corresponding to the printed volume in which the document was published. The remaining numbers represent the identification number in sequential order.

GEOBASE contains 7-digit numeric accession numbers. There is no corresponding meaning to be derived from the numbers, such as a production week or year.

GeoRef contains 7-digit to 10-digit numeric accession numbers. These accession numbers will also contain a hyphen.

Inspec is a database of documents published between 1969 to the current year.

Inspec contains 5-digit to 8-digit numeric accession numbers.

Due to the loading of archives of conferences and standards with publication years before 1969, the database includes documents with much older publication years.

Your institution's account settings determine the exact start year you will see in the ‘Published’ year dropdown of the ‘Date’ tab when running an Inspec search query. This feature allows the exclusion of documents with older publication years, which may not be relevant to your specific institution.

The Inspec Archive is a static database that includes digitized records from the Science Abstracts journals dating from 1898 to 1968. The Inspec Archive accession number is a 10-character alphanumeric identifier assigned to each archived record and is formatted as follows:

The first four characters is the Science Abstracts volume year.

The fifth character is the Science Abstracts section letter (A, B, or C) as defined below:

• Science Abstracts (1898-1902)

  • The letter A was assigned for 1898 to 1902 records since the Science Abstracts journals had not been divided into sections at that time
• Science Abstracts A:

  • Physics Abstracts (1903-1968)
• Science Abstracts B:

  • Electrical Engineering Abstracts (1903 - 1965)
  • Electrical and Electronics Abstracts (1966 - 1968)
• Science Abstracts C:

  • Control Abstracts (1966 - 1968)

The sixth through tenth characters are the Science Abstracts abstract number.

Inspec Archive accession number examples:

Knovel contains alphanumeric accession numbers that are 10 characters in length.

NTIS contains alphanumeric accession numbers that are 6 to 14 characters in length.

PaperChem contains numeric accession numbers that are 2 to 14 characters in length.

The documents in the Patents Plus database (comprised of patents from China, Europe, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the World Intellectual Property Organization) do not contain accession numbers, per se, but rather assign publication numbers that function as the unique identification numbers for these patent offices. These publication numbers consist of alphanumeric characters that include the two-letter abbreviations for the patent office, followed by 1 to 14 digits. U.S. patents may also include an additional letter after the U.S. abbreviation to indicate the type of patent, such as design, plant, or reissue.