President's Memo

November 2003

In Search of Hidden Treasures...

by José M. Izquierdo-Encarnación

Possibly because I was born in the Caribbean region, with its lore and legend of shipwrecks and buried chests of gold, it just might make me more suitable for searching for hidden treasures. I have friends who are always seeking that special bottle of wine hidden in some old liquor or wine store. Other friends are always looking for stock in an unknown company that will suddenly grow and make them rich.

Recently, I have found hidden treasure within our concrete community that is worth sharing with readers.

I hope most ACI members have noticed the great improvement of Concrete International (CI) magazine. We have a wonderful staff that has enhanced the magazine both technically and graphically. The real treasure, however, is the CI website: www.concreteinternational.com. Why? It's very simple. Within the CI website, subscribers currently have access to:

  • 873 full-length articles (every single article since 1999); and
  • 2265 article abstracts.

Best of all, the website is fully searchable, with articles available in PDF format for FREE downloading by ACI members! After doing a keyword search, we find:

  • 1054 articles dealing with CONSTRUCTION;
  • 823 articles about DESIGN;
  • 281 articles covering REPAIR; and
  • 345 articles on RESEARCH.

With just a click, you can purchase any CI article before 1999, which can be sent out via fax or mail. This is a very powerful tool for everyday work. Accessing articles requires just a few mouse clicks. The CI article database can be reached either through the magazine's website, www.concreteinternational.com (under the "archives" menu), or the ACI website. Figure 1 depicts the pulldown menu under "Publications," where access to CI and the ACI Journals can be found at www.concrete.org.



Fig. 1: ACI website publications menu

But there is even more...

If you click on the "Abstracts" button on the same menu, journal paper abstracts can be searched back to 1929 (yes, you read that right-1929!), along with every CI article, and all ACI books, codes, and standards.

There are 10,882 abstracts! If we use the same keyword search breakdown as before, we find:

  • 3009 abstracts on CONSTRUCTION;
  • 4074 abstracts about DESIGN;
  • 820 abstracts dealing with REPAIR; and
  • 3418 abstracts about RESEARCH.

It is really a great treasure-this instantly searchable database for ACI members-that is available within our websites.

And for fans of the "President's Memo," these are accessible back to 1997-all the way to the memos of ACI Past President Dick White. So enjoy your ACI membership and take advantage of the hidden treasure at your disposal.

José M. Izquierdo-Encarnación, President
American Concrete Institute
pepe@porticus-ingenieria.com

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