Some history...
The International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre (CIS) is a service of the International Labour Office in Geneva, Switzerland. It was established in 1959 with the aim of collecting all relevant information about occupational safety and health (OSH) being published around the world, whatever the format and the language. Between 1959 and 1973 CIS published its information in the form of bibliographic card sets that were sent to subscribers worldwide. In 1973 it became one of the first services of its kind to computerize, and it has maintained a continuous, bilingual (English and French), high-quality database ever since. New information added to this database is published in CIS's bimonthly bulletin Safety and Health at Work. In recent years, CIS has also published full-text information providing practical information on OSH matters, and it continues to furnish general information on OSH topics in the form of personalized database searches.

The future
CIS is fully committed to further extensions of its high-quality information service. A Spanish-language version of the database is planned in the near future (the Bulletin is already translated into Spanish by our Spanish National Centre). Expansion into the Internet of the full database is under strong consideration.

Objectives
The major objective of CIS is to be a worldwide service dedicated to the collection and dissemination of information on the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases. It is assisted in its work by more than 120 national institutions around the world (its National and Collaborating Centres) dealing with OSH matters in their own countries.

Our Products and Services

Bibliographic bulletin and database
The major objective of CIS is to be a worldwide service dedicated to the collection and dissemination of information on the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases. It is assisted in its work by more than 120 national institutions around the world (its National and Collaborating Centres) dealing with OSH matters in their own countries.


The bulletin is available as:

SAFETY AND HEALTH AT WORK - ILO-CIS BULLETIN
An abstracting periodical appearing 6 times a year
published in English and French.

ONLINE

CISDOC accessible through:
  ESA/IRS,
  QUESTEL,
  ORBIT,
  MEDLARS.AT.MIC

CD-ROM

"OSH-ROM"
  CISDOC, NIOSHTIC, HSELINE &
  MHIDAS (SilverPlatter)
"OSH Inter Datadisc" B2
  CISILO (CISDOC) in English and French
  (CCINFOdisc series, CCOHS)

Full-text information
In addition to bibliographic information, CIS also makes full-text, immediately usable documents available to the disposal of its users.

These include:

• The ILO Encyclopaedia of Occupational Safety and Health (4th ed. to be published in English in January 1998 in both printed and CD-ROM formats; French and Spanish editions to follow afterwards)


• CIS info-sheets on specific hazards (Technical/Ergonomic/Medical/Chemical)


• Directory of Occupational Safety and Health Institutions (see here for a sample)


• Directory of CIS National and Collaborating Centres (also available on the Internet)


• Occupational Safety and Health Glossary (2600 terms and expressions, 5 languages), sample chapter (letter "A") on the Internet.


• Microcomputer databases (see here for a listing)


• Access to the full text of documents abstracted by CIS


• Information on upcoming conferences (also in the Bulletin) and courses (in the Bulletin)

Personalized information searches
For its subscribers, CIS will also perform a personalized search of its database. Non-subscribers may have access to this service as well, against a nominal payment.