Editorial
How do you know that you have authoritative health, safety and fire information?
Sheila Pantry OBE
November 2009
Data on occupational health, safety and hygiene can be found in numerous formats e.g. journal articles, guidance and advice publications and reports, standard specifications, legislation, research reports and web sites.
Some 20-30 years ago it was perhaps more simple to access this type of data because there were a comparatively limited number of journals, authoritative organisations, publishers, research organisations, and pieces of legislation being passed into law.
Now the scene is much more complicated - serious occupational safety and health (OSH) information seekers need to know where the gaps are in OSH information, and examine closely the concept/myth of "It is all there on the Internet and Free of charge" and the effects of believing this when making decisions that relate to securing effective health and safety standards in the workplace.
So are you drowning in information yet thirsty for knowledge?
It is always good to keep researching and finding out if there are services and other ways of keeping up-to-date in this fast changing world of ours. Time is precious and many people are really stretched in their jobs and find it difficult to keep ahead in current knowledge that they should have for their jobs. But help is at hand for those working in health, safety and fire and fire related industries.
Time is precious and many people are really stretched in their jobs and find it difficult to keep ahead in current knowledge that they should have for their jobs. But help is at hand for those working in health, safety and fire and fire related industries.
FIREINF www.fireinf.com is the world's premier collection of validated, authoritative fire and fire related information. It now contains 17 databases and around 529,000 records and covers two major collections.
FIREINF Full Text Collection databases containing thousands of pages of full text information and The Bibliographic Collection has databases contain records to journal articles, guidance and advice, circulars, reports, conference proceedings, research reports, statistics, codes of practice, standards from worldwide sources, all of which may be easily accessed.
Likewise OSH UPDATE www.oshupdate.com brings together 19 quality databases and over 803,000 records containing both full text and bibliographic information.
Both OSH UPDATE and FIREINF are continuously enlarged as new information is published. These services are used by organisations, universities and companies worldwide.
For a 15 DAY FREE NO OBLIGATION TRIAL contact: Sheila Pantry Associates Ltd | email: sp@sheilapantry.com | or fill in the Interest form www.sheilapantry.com/interest.html
Your OSHWorld Portal
Worldwide, plans have been made already up to 2010 to have training courses, symposiums and conferences in many places in the world on a wide range of subjects. Look at the latest additions to the Diary of Events. Don't forget to budget for these events - make sure that you and your colleagues are up-to-date with the very latest knowledge - remember that all workplaces and those working in them change, so continue to do your risk assessments.
Globally new titles, news items, new products are being produced so remember to look at the News to find the latest information from a number of sources. Use OSHWORLD as your portal to many hundreds of validated and authoritative web sites that you can find in the Country and Subject links we offer. New subject topics are constantly brought together on web sites, e.g. swine flu.
Focus this month looks at the hot topic - Stress and bullying in the workplace.
Most information services have a reference shelf where you can quickly check the reference sources - so OSHWORLD brings you a collection of Reference sources.
Click onto the various Bookshops to order any new document as they are being published. Bookshops have a constant stream of new titles available.
Please send any suggestions or comments about OSHWORLD - your portal to validated and authoritative information.
Don't work harder - work smarter! Be ahead of the game.
Are you having a zero accident, incident-free and healthy year in 2009 in your workplace? Some would argue that this is not possible! But keep on trying!
And do continue to make plans for your campaigns for 2010 and beyond!