Compendex is a comprehensive database for searching the peer-reviewed engineering literature that is provided through the Engineering Village interface. It is considered a "citation" database, since it indexes and provides citations across all engineering literature (including all of VDOT's engineering journal subscriptions with other publishers) but it leads users to full text.
Full-text will not always be available with one click, however, the Engineering Village interface has features that help you find full text when it is available.
When you run a search in Compendex you'll notice in the results that each work has a title, author, and other bibliographic details (also known as the "citation") in addition to a brief description of the publication, which appears if you click the "Show preview" feature.
These features are all helpful in assessing if the work is relevant to your specific needs. Once you decide a source IS relevant, your next question will be: "How do I get a copy of it so I can read the full text?"
There are four types of full-text available to VDOT employees using Compendex, which are explained below:
1. Open Access: 4.4 million such works are now available for "free, immediate, online availability...coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment." (Source: SPARC) To get a document simply click the "Full text" button.
2. Preprint articles: 850,000 preprint articles (manuscripts prepared for publication that get shared prior to full peer review) are now available in Compendex. For more on this topic see our Preprint FAQ. To get a document simply click the "Full text" button.
3. VDOT Subscription Journals: More than 500,000 articles from engineering/technical journals the library subscribes to are found in Compendex, including: ASCE journals, ICE journals and dozens more engineering journals. To get a document simply click the "Full text" button.
4. Knovel eBooks: About 2,800 eBooks available in VDOT's Knovel subscription are now accessible via Compendex. To get to one simply click the "View in Knovel" button.
Still didn't get to the full text?
For any item you find in Compendex that does not have a "Full text" button (or the button does not connect you to the full text as expected), simply copy the citation details for the item you are interested in and submit it in a request to the Library using this ILL and Document Delivery Request Form. Delivery may take 1-2 weeks, but is often much faster.
