Visual Guide to finding non-patent prior art with IEEE Computer Society's Digital Library and Xplore

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a professional organization with some of the best collections of technical information.  It offers several different publications to search, we're going to be searching its Computer Society's Digital library.
From here we can run a Quick Search for an article's title, author, or phrase.  We could also browse different sections of the magazine.
Let's start by doing a Quick Search for 'touch screen camera'.
Looks like I didn't get any results, let's try an Advanced Search instead.
I can reach the Advance Search page by following the link in the above navigation bar.
Or I could have reached it from the magazines home page where we started the Quick Search before.
Just follow the link.
From the Advance Search page I can search through an article's text, author, ISBN, restrict the results by the publish date, and sort by relevance, title or date.  I can also select the publications that are searched.
Let's try a full text search for 'touch pad driven handheld device'.
And limit the results to articles published from April 1994 to April 2004.
With over 21,000 results I may want to refine my search, which I can conveniently do in the fields above.
Let's take a closer look at the result, Natural Language in Multimodal Human-Computer Interface by Olivero Stock.
From the results page I can quickly view other articles IEEE has determined are like this one by following the 'More Like This' link.
Now I have even more articles to look through for prior art, but the results are no longer restricted by issue date.
To check the article's bibliographic and abstract follow the 'Abstract' link.
Now we know the article's publication, and date. We can read through abstract and check the citations too.
In addition to the 'More Like This' feature discussed above, we can search for more similar articles from the abstract page.
Just follow the 'Similar Articles' link.
Now we have another 4,000 results to look through for prior art.
In order to view the entire article I'll have to, either pay $19 or join IEEE and subscribe to their digital library Xplore.  It's always worth checking for free copies with databases like Google Scholar, CiteSeer, or Dspace: you'll be surprised at how many IEEE article you can find for free.
If you decide you'll need to purchase the article from IEEE you'll be redirected at some point to Xplore. Since I know the title, let's search using 'Natural Language in Multimodal Human-Computer Interface'.
There it is, top result.
Again we can get the articles bibliographic information and read its abstract.
In order to download the article we'll have to register with IEEE, we can do that by following the 'Learn More' link in the top right corner.
I'm interested an Individual membership.
Depending on how much you plan on using Xplore, it could be much cheaper to join IEEE as a member.  IEEE members receive a $10 discount off any article at Xplore.
IEEE members have the option to and download 25 articles a month for $35. And rollover unused downloads for an additional $15.
To join IEEE follow the  'Not a Member of IEEE' link on the top right.
Now follow the 'Join Now' link
Make sure to check the dues, benefits, and qualifications before joining.
Depending on where you live a year membership in 2012 costs from $54 to $181.  Students pay only $27 to $32, but should always check to make sure they can't access Xplore through their academic institution.
Ok, now follow the 'Begin join process' link.
Just above the login...
Follow the 'Join Online' link.
Finally, after following all those links we can begin registering by filling in your information.
Your address.
Your Education and Employment information.
And then you'll be sent an email...and when I get that email I'll update the guide.
You'd think there was probably a quicker way to do this, remember there is always ACM's Digital library or DeepDyve. Always make sure to check with IEEE for the latest prices and subscription, and membership options. Back to Patent-Ed's Visual Guides to finding prior art  >>