Well, the answers to these questions and a lot more are in the bibliographic information. Here’s a quick overview of what to look out for when you select a standard on BSI Knowledge.
The first thing you’ll probably want to know is if the standard is current or withdrawn. This can be useful if, for example, you need to find out which standard was applied to a piece of machinery that was built some years ago.
There is a third status too: ‘Current, Under review,’ which alerts you to a current standard that is in the process of being reviewed by the relevant committee.
When you click on one of the standards on BSI Knowledge, you’ll be taken to a standard product page. On that product page you will see its ‘Current’, or ‘Withdrawn’, or ‘Current, Under review’ status alongside the full name and number of the standard, and its date of publication.
For some standards, you’ll also see an additional blue ‘designated’ symbol. What’s that?
Well, it’s a standard that has been designated by the UK Government so that businesses can show their products, services or processes comply with essential requirements of legislation.
On a standard product page, you can click on the 'Overview' tab and you’ll access more valuable information.
There’s the document history, so you can see the timeline of previous versions of the standard. Also, since standards can be part of a series of related standards, you’ll be able to find these on the overview too.
On the standard product page, there is more valuable bibliographic information under the 'Product Details' tab.
It’ll tell you if any other standards normatively or informatively reference the one you’re exploring. When you're dealing with complex subject matter, those cross-references can be extremely useful in finding out which other standards are related to your standard of interest.
You’ll also find the descriptors under this tab. These are the index terms that have been used to tag standards and can help to determine the relevance of each standard to your needs.
Product details also have the ICS codes which let you know other international standards that are equivalent to the one that is of interest to you, where applicable. What does ICS mean?
This relates to the International Classification for Standards codes published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which establish the topic areas into which standards should be grouped.
You can also find out which international standards are actually identical to the one you’re looking at via the International Relationships information.
Some users find the committee reference information useful. It enables you to identify which organizations sat on the committee for a specific standard and provided expertise in its creation. You can enter a committee reference to our Standards Development Portal to see these organizations listed on the right-hand side of the web page.
By knowing how to navigate the bibliographic information of a standard on BSI Knowledge successfully, you can unlock even more value for money from BSI standards.
If you have further standards questions, there is help at hand for BSI Members as part of their subscription. Members can call on the skills and resources of the professional researchers of the BSI Member Enquiry Service. Just email knowledgecentre@bsigroup.com.
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