The Information Centre, a key section of The Concrete Institute (TCI) in Midrand, is continuing to add to its unique collection of reference material relating to cement and concrete – the largest collection of its kind in Africa.
Established in 1957, the TCI Information Centre operates as a public concrete technology library and is accessible to anyone in South Africa interested in or needing information on concrete topics. It has over the years become an essential destination – both personally or online – for thousands of students as well as practitioners in the concrete and related industries.
The Centre has a vast collection of well over 140 000 concrete-related reference material, including e-documents, books, and journals from across the globe.
Susan Battison, manager of the TCI Information Centre, says the collection includes the latest published American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards relating to cement and concrete, adding to the Information Centre’s collection of South African and British standards.
“The collection of conference proceedings, which are indexed fully on our online catalogue, has also grown and now includes papers on super-absorbent polymers and the rheology of construction materials. Information on construction techniques in precast and 3D printing have also been acquired while South African research by Prof Mitchell Gohnert, of Wits University, on shell structures has also been added.
“The assessment, repair and rehabilitation of concrete structures are also key additions to the collection and augments our material on the sustainability and durability aspects of concrete infrastructure. The publications of international organisations such as the International Union of Testing and Research Laboratories for Materials and Structures (RILEM) and the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) are also stocked,” Battison states.
The TCI Information Centre indexes all the journals it receives and provides a monthly list of current contents which can be accessed by emailing [email protected] with the subject line “Subscribe current contents”.
“Despite revolutionary changes in information technology over the past 63 years, the Information Centre collection has kept pace with the latest trends in information dissemination and remains a valuable resource on cement and concrete information that contributes to the development of sustainable and durable South African infrastructure,” she adds
The TCI online catalogue is available at http://www.cciinformationcentre.org/ActiveConnect2002/default.html.
