The ASM Handbook, formerly known as The Metals Handbook, is a multi‐volume reference work with a long history of providing the most complete information on “the properties, processing, and applications of engineering materials.” In putting the handbook into electronic form, ASM broke the 20‐volume set into four collections: Metals Properties and Performance (Vols 1, 2, 13, and 18); Metal Treatment, Structure, and Joining (Vols 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9); Testing, Analysis, and Failure Prevention (Vols 8, 10, 11, 12, and 19); and Manufacturing Processes Collection (Vols 7, 14, 15, 16, and 17). The complete data from all 20 volumes are also available on a single‐user or networked CD‐ROM.
The volumes in the Metals Properties and Performance Collection are: Vol. 1, Irons, Steels, and High Performance Alloys, Properties and Selection; Vol. 2, Nonferrous Alloys and Special‐Purpose Materials, Properties and Selection; Vol. 13, Corrosion; and Vol. 18, Friction, Lubrication, and Wear Technology.
Installation worked well using the standard Windows Install Shield Wizard. The software running the handbook is DynaText by Inso Corp., an SGML reader software package. Being well aware of user allergies to reading instructions, I first tried to use the Handbook without referring to the online or the printed documentation. As usual the result was some success, some frustration, and lots of enlightenment once the documentation was consulted. The online documentation, the DynaText Reader Guide, is generic to any DynaText product and is more than sufficiently thorough. The printed User’s Guide is by Dialog On Disc. It is concise, well illustrated, and uses examples from the ASM Handbook. The two sets of documentation are complementary and should meet most users’ needs.
The default layout has a toolbar at the top, a search box at the bottom, and left and right windows in the middle of the screen. The left window displays the table of contents (TOC) while the right is the content screen. The software is highly customizable. The layout can be changed. Users can choose to see only the TOC screen or the content screen (the default is both). The zoom feature allows changing the page size from 50 per cent to 200 per cent. The TOC screen can be compressed or expanded to four levels of headings and subheadings. Since the ASM Handbook headings link to such huge blocks of text, it is recommended that users set the TOC display to at least two levels.
The TOC is hyperlinked to the sections of the handbook, as one would expect. In the contents, a footnote number is linked to the appropriate bibliography entry. Highlighted words link to related articles. Figures and tables are not integrated into the text but open in another window by clicking on a camera icon; awkward, but perhaps necessary given the sheer volume of the material.
Trying to get back from a table to the text page demonstrated that navigation can be awkward in a software that is a browser/application software hybrid. After clicking on a link, I kept looking for a back button or a go menu, and it was not there. Instead it was simple enough to get back by closing the window or going to the “window” menu. A link from the figures and tables back to the text would improve navigation.
Good indexing and a good search engine are vital to a product with so much information. The index is adequate, although the hyperlink takes the user to the section rather than the exact word. The search engine has some nice features. It is always on the screen, first of all, unless users elect to turn it off. A search menu is one of the items on the toolbar. From it users can access the search history (current session only) or go to more advanced search forms. The advanced search form shows the search history and allows options for searching article titles, author bylines, section titles, table titles, table contents, figure captions, or references. It also allows proximity searching.
Among DynaText’s nicer features is the ability to annotate the text. Users can bookmark text, or add a note, or create a hyperlink between different parts of the text.
Bookmarks, notes, and hyperlinks can be made accessible to a group or can be private, and may be removed only by the person who created them. An annotation manager allows users to see and sort all the annotations. Another nice feature is that one can create a “journal” that logs the sections of text consulted in a session.
The CD‐ROM reflects the lack of currency that can occur in a handbook updated over several years.
One set of tables on shipments of US steel mill products, for example, has statistics from 1984‐85. The “supplementary information” in each volume includes useful information such as abbreviations, symbols, trade names, glossaries, and more.
Overall, the ASM Handbook is a good product that engineering schools and firms will find indispensable. One suspects that eventually, however, ASM will find clients asking for a Web‐based product that is more frequently updated. In the meantime, the CD‐ROM is adequate.
