Guides & Tutorials: Building & Real Estate: Find Standards & Specifications

Why Standards Matter

Standards are published documents that establish specifications and procedures designed to ensure the reliability of the materials, products, methods, and/or services people use every day.

Standards can help us:

better understand the required specifications for products
ensure products, systems, services behave reliably and safely
learn how something works (treat standards as “how-to” instructions)
meet safety criteria required by law

Where to Find Standards

PolyU eligible users can access the full text of standards from the following databases:

ASTM Compass
provides full access to technical standards, books, journals and technical reports published by American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). It also covers standards co-developed by ISO and BSI.
British Standards Online (BSOL)
provides full access to British Standards (BSI) and other international standards adopted as British Standards.
IEEE Xplore
provides full text access to literature in electrical and electronic engineering, from IEEE journals, transactions, conference proceedings and also IEEE standards.
IHS Engineering Workbench
provides full access to technical standards, including AATCC, ANSI, ASME, JIS(JSA), NFPA.
Techstreet Enterprise
provides full access to technical standards, conference proceedings, and technical reports published by ASHRAE, CIE and UL standards.

More details about coverage of standards on each platform, no. of concurrent users, and specific requirements for opening the downloaded files. Navigate to individual pages to learn how to find standards in each database.

Database	Standards Coverage (in PolyU's Subscription)	No. of Concurrent Users	Protected PDF files (FileOpen plug-in required)
ASTM Compass	ASTM	Unlimited
British Standards Online (BSOL)	BS ISO IEC*	Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited	✓ ✓ ✓
IEEE Xplore Digital Library	IEEE	Unlimited
IHS Engineering Workbench	AATCC ANSI ASME JIS(JSA) NFPA	3 1 1 3 3
Techstreet Enterprise	ASHRAE CIE UL	Unlimited Unlimited 3	✓ ✓ ✓

*Only those that have been adopted as British Standards

Find Local Standards & Specifications

Standards, Specifications, Code of Practice documents published by departments of Hong Kong Government:

Department	Website
Architectural Services Department (ASD)	General Specification
Building Department (BD)	Codes, Design Manuals and Guidelines
Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD)	Standards, BIM Objects, Specifications, Handbooks, Tender Price and Cost Indices
Development Bureau (DEVB)	Standard Contract Documents Standard Consultancy Document
Environmental Protection Department (EPD)	Guidelines and Reference Materials
Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA)	Specification Library