For anyone getting questions about accessing a standard, we have an up-to-date guide to the standards we have access to. This includes a lot of online standards, which makes access much simpler.

If you’ve heard that standards are complicated, don’t panic. They kind of are, but most queries are straightforward – if we’ve got online access, all’s good; if you can find a print version in the catalogue (do a keyword search on the code, eg BS 5500 – include the space), it can be requested as normal.

The only time things become complicated is when we seem not to have it – not all our print ones are catalogued, and also often standards are cross-coded, so we might actually have it under a different code. So as a rule of thumb, don’t say that we don’t have it – if you can’t find it, contact me, Dave Lane, Christine McKee, or Anne Milligan and we’ll investigate further.

Deborah