As part of the review of continuing resources, the Library has looked at a variety of options in order to reduce expenditure by 15% for 2013. As a result of this review, INSPEC has been cancelled and access will be lost in the next two to three days.

INSPEC provides citations and abstracts of the scientific and technical literature in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers and computing, information technology, manufacturing and production engineering. There is significant overlap with SCOPUS and other products. Only 7% of the material indexed is unique to INSPEC, including 89 English language titles.

The review had earlier considered cancelling SCOPUS. There were over 60 submissions from academics and postgraduates indicating that this action would have a detrimental impact on research. The Library then investigated alternative options, which included cancelling INSPEC. There was wide consultation on this, with no strong opposition so long as SCOPUS was retained. A proposal was then sent to SMT, who approved the cancellation of INSPEC.

INSPEC was due for renewal on 1 October 2012. Access was kindly extended by Elsevier while negotiations continued on ScienceDirect, SCOPUS and INSPEC. These negotiations have now concluded with ScienceDirect and SCOPUS being renewed for 2013.