Search

Presents an article on the American Men and Women of Science (AMWS), an online reference source for biographical information of scientists. Background of AMWS and its relation with Gale Group; Use of AMWS on the information retrieval system, Dialog; Problems associated with the use of the system.

Analyzes how the elimination of DialUnit rounding up has affected the cost of searching on Dialog. Bottom-Line impact; DialogWeb vs. Dialog Classic; Comparison of May 1998 versus September 1998 pricing. INSETS: Newsbreaks: Dialog Classic and Dialog Web, by Barbara Quint;Dialog Exercises Option to Buy Responsive, by Barbara Quint.

Provides information about the International OnLine Meeting (IOLM) 1997 which changed its name to Online Information '97. Statistical information on visitors and exhibitors; Description of the Dialog databases; Other exhibitors who attended the meeting and their technologies.

Focuses on the partnership of DIALOG and Dow Jones Interactive that will challenged the World Wide Web to a search-off concerning its usefulness versus traditional online tools. Goals of the search-off; Information about the documents received by Dow Jones related to the search; Ideal pattern for a relevance ranked search. INSET: Digression on nested boolean....

Discusses the use of the RANK command in the DIALOG information retrieval system. Decision challenges presented by new search features in online business searching; Choosing menus over command language; Command driven features; Applications of RANK; Using RANK for content analysis.

Discusses the education of librarians seeking a master's degree in library sciences. Proficiency of librarians in online database searching; Views of the author regarding the necessity of teaching the Dialog system, a fee-based text-only online service; Need for librarians to know how the information that they are searching is structured.

Discusses the reaction of the Steering Committee of the Southern California Online Users Group to the announcement that the Internet company Dialog was bought by Thomson. Problems with Dialog as a search engine; How Thomson should integrate links to full-text articles on publisher Web sites; What users want in online search systems; Suggestions for Thomson and Dialog.

The article presents the author's views on the efficiency of online information services and the fee they charge. The author dashed into Information Access Co.'s Computer Database file on DIALOG, entered a quick and dirty search, and limited results by date and appearances of terms in the title or descriptor fields. In a few minutes, the machine found 44 items. She ordered an online type of all the bibliographic citations. As the 34th item slid past, she issued a Break command and exited the system. For 34 hits, DIALOG and IAC charged her $84.14. Her reactions as a consumer illustrate many of the challenges that face traditional online industry players today and threaten their tomorrows. When new services introduce radically lower pricing for substantially the same product, old services must react to those changes. If they do not, they will push old customers into the arms of competitors, arms already cuddling any new customers out there. The trick is to focus unwaveringly on what the customer sees as value. Now the searcher community includes both professional searchers and end users.

Discusses potential changes in online information services. Potential for declining markets for online information companies; How the cost of information, especially news, is decreasing and its effect on Internet companies; Possible problem with publishers and online services; Example of Dialog as a company influenced by the changing market and the Internet environment.

Informs that at the 1998 Online World conference, The Dialog Corp. announced its launch of DialogClassic, a high-speed, Web-based mode of access to its command-based flagship DIALOG service. The company's introduction as well of the version 2.0 of DialogWeb, the firm's graphical Web interface to DIALOG; Features of the service.

The article presents information about three new business databases announced on DIALOG during 1996. Two of them, D&B European Financial Records and Kompass Eastern Europe, enrich DIALOG's large collection of company databases. The third, International Business Directory, fits with DIALOG's strengths in both business and science and technology information. DIALOG and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) have long been one of the strongest online service/database producer partnerships. DIALOG was the first external supplier for D&B and remains a major third party host for D&B databases. European company information is also the focus of the latest in the Kompass series. Unlike the D&B files, which concentrate on financial data, the Kompass databases emphasize product information with detailed product listings from thousands of companies worldwide. The Kompass databases are produced by an international consortium of business directory publishers. The International Business Directory is misnamed, since it is actually a directory of technologies for transfer from both profit and nonprofit organizations.

The article reports that Information Access Co., (IAC) has reloaded its scholarly business file Academic Index on DIALOG. The database also got a new name of IAC Business ARTS, which stands for Applied Research, Theory and Scholarship, reflecting the social, cultural, political and psychological aspects of this business resource. IAC Business ARTS provides in-depth coverage of important research topics not found in most traditional business databases-topics such as economic theories and models, public affairs, higher education, cross-cultural studies, public policy and administration, media analysis, the sociology of the workplace, technology and culture, business ethics and societal change. Also featured are articles containing essays, debates, criticism, poetry, quotations, speeches, transcripts, equations and formulae, which complement and add dimension to the typical business search.

The article presents information about the online publication of market research reports. Market research reports have been coming online only gradually, and are still not as widely available as many other kinds of business information. The "Big Three" online sources for market research reports are Market Analysis and Information Database, I/PLUS Direct and DIALOG. Each service has a diverse collection of market research reports from multiple publishers, representing regional and worldwide markets for many products and services. Frost & Sullivan Inc. (F&S) is one of the biggest and most well-known market research publishers. In January it went up on DIALOG, which makes it also one of a very few market research publishers whose reports are on each of the "Big Three" online services. F&S's "Big Three" sweep brings a major collection of market research information to a wide audience of online searchers. Reports typically contain several types of information that are relevant to corporate strategic planning, product development, market analysis and planning, mergers and acquisitions research, and competitive analysis.

The article presents information on the purchase of Data-Star, the text and bibliographic online service, by Knight-Ridder Inc. The Data-Star business, based in Bern, Switzerland, was purchased from Motor-Columbus, the Swiss engineering technology firm. According to details released by Knight-Ridder, they have acquired the equity of Radio Schweiz AG whose principle business is Data-Star. In addition to Data-Star the sale includes Tradstat, Data-Mail, and the telecommunications business of RadioSuisse. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Knight-Ridder plans to build on the individual strengths of the two companies with Dialog and Data-Star operating jointly in the service and sales areas. Dialog and its parent Knight-Ridder want a bigger part of the international pie. Data-Star's customer base covers not only Europe, but the U.S. and Japan. Data-Star has had a strong foothold in the European market, while Dialog, though sharing some of that market, has dominated the U.S. Most likely, as a result of this acquisition Dialog will emerge with a strong presence in the international market and Data-Star will gain in the U.S. market, which is the purpose of an acquisition.

The article presents information about several online information resources and online databases. Dow Jones News/Retrieval has been expanding from its original investment/ finance focus for the past decade. Its latest database addition is a big one, Dun's Market Identifiers (DMI), from Dun & Bradstreet Corp. DMI is one of the key databases for company research, especially for medium and small businesses. The TRW file is a new wrinkle for Dialog, since it is the first database on Dialog that specializes in business credit information. TRW is, along with Dun & Bradstreet, one of the two largest credit information companies in the U.S. TRW Business Credit Profiles has payment histories for 25 million U.S. companies, but its use is not limited to credit checks. a 1992 debut on Dialog. The American Business Directory provides name, address, product line, sales and number of employees for 11 million U.S. organizations, including schools, churches and government bodies as well as businesses. The database is derived from the nation's telephone books, supplemented by telephone calls for verification. It is the successor to the venerable TRINET company databases.

This article features the Technical Information System Center or the library of Grumman Corp located at its headquarters in Bethpage, Long Island, New York. The library has been using computerized systems for information retrieval since the mid 1960s. In the 1970s, the company added Dialog, Orbit and BRS as they were introduced into the marketplace. Other databanks accessed include Aerospace Online, Commerce Business Daily and Budget Track. The library fields queries from Grumman offices, subsidiaries and plants located throughout the U.S. In terms of databank usage, Dialog is the most popular, followed the Defense Research Development Test & Evaluation Online System with Nexis/Lexis in the third place. Having access to numerous databases allows Grumman to get a wide variety of information.

This article provides information on the Consumer Reports database on Dialog and Knowledge Index. Consumer Reports is more than a product evaluation magazine. It has become a U.S. institution. Many mass market magazines have good product reviews, but when most people think product ratings, Consumer Reports automatically springs to mind. Consumer Reports fills a yawning chasm among online resources. The scope of Consumer Reports is always impressive. Many people turn to it automatically before purchasing mundane items.

This article provides information on Pro-Search, a communications package for searching online databases. The package has the unique ability to generate accounting reports that summarize the online costs for searching bibliographic retrieval service (BRS) and Dialog databases. Pro-Search also comes with procedures that provide automatic communications with BRS and Dialog databases. The package provides convenient storage and transmission of additional search lines during an online session. Users of BRS and Dialog can store search lines, then send them one at a time as successive system prompts are received.

This article reports on the announcement by Dialog that DialogLink 5 is already available for free downloading, as of April 2005. The software package has a more intuitive interface and additional tools to streamline the process of finding, retrieving, and distributing information found through the Dialog online service. It also features report-building tools and linking capabilities to help integrate retrieved information into management reports, company publications, and internal information-sharing systems, such as company intranets and portals. DialogLink 5 also includes Electronic Redistribution and Archiving, a service that guarantees copyright clearance for copying, storing, and distributing documents retrieved from Dialog.

Dialog announced that it has added images to the TRADEMARKSCAN files from Finland (File 679) and Sweden (File 675) available through its online services. TRADEMARKSCAN File 679 contains valid applications and registrations published since 1891, plus inactive, unpublished, and published trademarks dating to 1995. About 36,000 trademarks, out of a total of approximately 120,000, have associated images. TRADEMARKSCAN also offers unpublished applications and inactive unpublished and published trademarks dating to 1987. All European trademark databases, as well as the International Register database of trademark information published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, are now updated on a weekly schedule.

The article reports on an announcement by Information Access Co. (IAC) that IAC Newswire ASAP has been reloaded on DIALOG with Predicasts Product Codes to enhance searching capabilities. Also, as part of the Newswire ASAP reload, the file is now available to non-North American searchers. Newswire ASAP provides the full text of wire stories from key worldwide news sources. Among the wire services currently covered are Business Wire, Newsbytes, and PR Newswire. It becomes the sixth IAC database on DIALOG to be reloaded and standardized with DIALOG's uniform fields this year. Uniform field tags facilitate cross-file searching across the entire DIALOG system. Newswire ASAP offers both current and retrospective information on companies, industries, products, people, trends, and technologies. It provides historical perspective and current awareness on worldwide events, helpful for tracking global political and economic news, conducting competitive intelligence, and monitoring worldwide industry and technology. The complete text and indexing of wire stones are usually available for searching within 36 hours of transmission, according to IAC.

The article informs that Dialog Information Services Inc. has changed its name to Knight-Ridder Information Inc. The change took effect the first of this month. At the same time the company began using a new mailing address and telephone numbers, in preparation for moving its headquarters to Mountain View, California. The name of the company's best known product, the DIALOG online service, will remain. However, the changing technological environment, an increasing market outside the U.S., and an expanding product line prompted Dialog to seek a company name that could more easily unite its global entities.

The article reports that Derwent Publications Ltd. and RadioSuisse AG have signed an agreement to load the Derwent literature databases on Data-Star, one of the online services of RadioSuisse. The loading of the files on Data-Star has been specifically requested by Derwent Literature subscribers to place Derwent files alongside other key databases in the clinical, biomedical and bio-business arena. Data-Star now offers over 250 databases specializing in the areas of biomedical, healthcare, pharmaceutical and business information. The addition of the Derwent literature databases will enhance the collection and will facilitate Derwent subscribers when performing their pharmaceutical, agrochemical or veterinary searching within the Data-Star environment Biotechnology Abstracts, released in October 1993, was the first Derwent database to be available on Data-Star, and all remaining files were to follow shortly thereafter. Derwent Literature files are also available on DIALOG and ORBIT, and will become available on STN later this year and during 1994.

The article reports that Dialog Information Services Inc. has turned over the management of its data networking operations to British Telecom PLC (BT). The contract, valued at $173 million, outlines Dialog's plans to migrate the online information service currently provided via its private DIALNET network to BT's Global Network Services (GNS). BT's globally managed end-to-end service will allow Dialog to relinquish its 60,000-user private network and increase local access for those users from 40 U.S. cities to 520. Using GNS, Dialog can also further leverage the international information services it recently acquired when its parent company, Knight-Ridder Inc., purchased Data-Star. Through more than 40 dedicated connections, GNS will enable Dialog to provide over I 55,000 active subscribers access to more than 450 databases from a series of mainframe computers located at its headquarters in Palo Alto, California. As the oldest scientific/technical online service, Dialog's roots have been in the research community, providing information to professional searchers and librarians for 20 years.

The article reports on the new sources for UMI's Newspaper & Periodical Abstracts online database. The program transcripts are provided by Journal Graphics Inc. As do all Newspaper & Periodical records, the radio program citations include complete bibliographic information, accurate indexing, and concise, informative abstracts. Newspaper & Periodical Abstracts is available as file 484 on Dialog.

The article reports that the Chemical Intelligence Services files on Dialog have been enhanced and restructured into two new databases. The databases are CHEMPLANT PLUS (File 318) and CHEMSTATS (File 328). CHEMPLANT PLUS is an enhancement of the former File 318, CHEM-INTELL It consists of the Chemical Plant Reports subfile of CHEM-INTELL, plus another chemical plant subfile, the Chemical Age Project File database. The new File 318 allows easy access to relevant information by a wide range of professionals who need to keep abreast of manufacturing activity in particular markets or industries. The Chemical Plant Reports subfile contains comprehensive, worldwide information on manufacturing plants for approximately 120 organic and inorganic chemicals. It contains over 14,000 manufacturing plant records and related information for approximately 44000 companies. Chemical Age Project File, is an historical database that monitors the status of chemical plants around the world from conception to completion.

The article reports that Standard & Poor's Corp. (S&P) has introduced Corporate Descriptions plus News, a major revision to its Corporate Descriptions online service. The service has been expanded to cover 33 percent more companies and to carry more financial information plus news on key corporate events. The financial information can be computer searched, making the database more versatile and useful. The new name, Corporate Descriptions plus News, highlights the addition of S&P's Daily News service to the Corporate Descriptions file, thereby updating each description with key corporate financials and events. At the same time, the complete fielding of financial data and the availability of key financial ratios increase the searching functionality to the user. The Corporate Descriptions plus News database is currently available through Dialog's time-sharing system as File 133. The database is also available to information vendors and corporations through a tape leasing program.

The article reports that Dialog Information Services Inc. has introduced Dialog HEADLINES featuring Hot Topics, a new service now available to give Dialog customers quick, easy and direct access to the latest information on the hot news topics of the day. Currently featured in Hot Topics are the 1992 U.S. Presidential Election and the upcoming XVI Summer Olympic Games. Users are assured the latest breaking news because all Hot Topic news stories are updated continuously from Reuters and daily from the AP News and Washington Post Online databases. Accessing the system is user friendly through the DIALOG main menu. Once in Dialog HEADLINES, the user needs only to select the Hot Topic of interest, or any of the other news topics and type the number listed for the topic.

This article states that the American Medical Association and Information Access Company (IAC) have announced that the full text of The Journal of the American Medical Association and American Medical News is now available online through Health Periodicals Database, the online database published by IAC. Currently, Health Periodicals Database may be accessed through Dialog Information Services, Inc. and Data-Star. Unlike traditional online health databases, Health Periodicals Database provides broad coverage in the areas of health, medicine, fitness, and nutrition. It is the only database to offer lay researchers consumer-oriented summaries of selected articles from more than 100 professional medical journals. In addition, author abstracts are available from some of these publications. The American Medical Association is the largest medical organization in the United States with a membership in excess of 285, 000 physician.

This article reports that Gale Directory of Publications database will be combined with Directories in Print and Newsletters in Print to form a publishing resource as of July 1991. Beginning early in 1992, Dialog subscribers will have complete access to details on virtually every newspaper, magazine, newsletter, and directory published in the U.S. The agreement to place Gale's publications and publishers databases online with Dialog continues the successful relationship that began in 1979 when Dialog placed Gale's Encyclopedia of Associations online.

This article reports that Dialog users can now access Toxline, the online reference file of the National Library of Medicine which provides vital research information on the pharmacological, physiological, biochemical and toxicological effects of drugs and other chemicals. Toxline is a compendium of current and retrospective reference material from more than a dozen scientific literature sources, including Biosis, the National Library of Medicine, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Technical Information Service, the Association of Hospital Pharmacists and others. The contribution of Biosis to Toxline on Dialog is titled Toxicological Aspects of Environmental Health, and provides complete references to literature on the health effects of environmental pollutants.

This article introduces the Dialog Menus, an easy-to-use-menu based version of the Dialog online information service, unveiled by Dialog Information Services Inc. Dialog Menus is designed to bring the latest information directly to the desks of busy research, business, and information professionals. It offers menu-assisted access to more than 220 Dialog databases covering the spectrum of subject areas. Dialog Menus databases include the complete text of articles from more than 1,100 journals and newsletters, as well as directory listings, patent records, company financial statements, bibliographic citations, and more.

This article presents information on the plans of Information Access Co. (IAC) to expand its online database, Academic Index, in November 1990. IAC will add over 600 scholarly journals by the end of the year. More than one-third of the new titles may be searched in Academic Index. Providing citations to research articles, case studies, prose, poetry and book reviews, Academic Index may be accessed through Dialog (File 88) and BRS Information Technologies (File ACAD). The expanded version of Academic Index contains 98 percent of the titles found in three separate H. W. Wilson indexes: Humanities Index, Social Sciences Index, and General Sciences Index. It also contains over 30 unique titles--mostly in the areas of law and communications--that are not found in any of the three Wilson indexes.

Presents news briefs related to online information services industry, as of September 1990. Announcement by PsycINFO of the recent reload of the PsycINFO database (File 11) on Dialog; Merger of Derwent Inc.'s online patent files USPA and USPB by Orbit Search Service; Availability of the PressNet Environmental Reports database on the Chemical Information System.

This article reports on the availability of Extel Cards online services from Extel Financial Ltd. through the Dialog information retrieval system. Extel Cards is acknowledged as an industry standard for presenting complete company information in a concise form. Extel International Financial Cards and Extel International News Cards will include all companies listed on the primary, secondary, and tertiary markets of the London Stock Exchange in England. The Extel files are valuable for the preparation of company profiles, competitive analysis, and detailed information about a company's management and organizational structure, policy, strategy, products and market position.

This article reports on the launch of European Dun's Market Identifiers (EDMI), an online database from Dun's Marketing Services in January 1990. EDMI debuted online through Dialog Information Services and includes profiles of over 1.5 million European companies. "With 1992 approaching, our customers have been requesting better coverage of European firms," said Tom Croarkin, sales and marketing manager at Dun's Marketing Services. "EDMI allows us to offer more information on more European firms than any other online database."

This article reports on an announcement by Dialog Information Services Inc. regarding the launch of Knight-Ridder Money Center Information on the DIALOG online service in 1990. As presented on DIALOG, Money-Center will be searchable via a menu, or by standard MoneyCenter commands. The database will consist of three segments: News, providing broad domestic and international coverage of events that influence markets gathered from the worldwide bureaus of Knight-Ridder Financial News; Quotes, supplying real-time and slightly delayed bids and offers on government securities, plus a wide assortment of other money-market instruments, fixed-income and mortgage-backed securities and foreign exchange; Fixed Pages, containing single screens of information on a variety of topics, including credit markets, mortgage-backed securities, economic indicators, foreign exchange, energy prices, and more. MoneyCenter is Dialog's first real-time product offering, with only those transactions involving exchange fees subject to a 15-minute embargo.

This article announces the availability of the CanCorp Canadian Corporations Database of Micromedia in March 1989 as File 491. CanCorp provides directory, financial and textual information on over 6,000 public and private Canadian companies. Updated weekly, CanCorp offers a complete corporate information package on major Canadian public companies trading on Canadian and U.S. exchanges, privately-held federally register companies, federal and provincial crown corporations, companies in the current Report on Business 1000 list and all companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

This article announces the availability of Knight-Ridder Financial News through Dialog's First Release service in 1989. The First Release service, launched in May of 1987, provides continuous updates of major news wire databases throughout the business day. The Knight-Ridder Financial News full-text file provides comprehensive, updated financial news reports and analysis plus key statistics that affect the world's markets, from credit markets to foreign exchange, from stocks to agricultural commodities.

This article deals with the announcement of Dialog Information Services Inc. and Micromedia Limited of Toronto, that the database Canadian Business and Current Affairs will become the sixth Dialog OnDisc product as of September 1988. The CD-ROM database will consist of a single disc covering the period 1982 to the present, holding in excess of 1.2 million records. The product is expected to be available for shipping during the third quarter of 1988. It was learned that the database provides indexing to more than 220,000 articles per year appearing in more than 200 Canadian business periodicals and trade journals, 300 popular magazines, and 10 newspapers. In addition, the database indexes event-related corporate filings deposited with the Ontario Securities Commission.

This article states that Herbert B. Landau, president of Engineering Information Inc. (Ei), has announced that Dialog Information Services has become the first host to offer Ei's COMPENDEX*Plus database to the public. COMPENDEX*PLUS went online on Dialog as File 8 on February 1, 1988. COMPENDEX*PLUS represents the merger of two major engineering literature databases, COMPENDEX, covering journal articles and Ei Engineering Meetings, covering conference papers. The combined file will provide over 200,000 new records per year, updated in monthly installments. The integrated database is also available for retrospective searching on DIALOG going back to 1970 and contains approximately 2 million journal and conference papers in all branches of engineering.

This article reports on the daily updating of Commerce Business Daily (CBD) on Dialog as of September 1987. The CBD database delivers new information each weekday on products and services which are requested or offered by the U.S. Government. The file is valuable for identifying new business opportunities and for monitoring the contract activities of competitors. Additionally, it provides comprehensive coverage of U.S. government procurement invitations, research and development requests, subcontracting leads, contract awards, and sales of surplus property gathered from U.S. civilian and military agencies as well as now U.S. government agencies.

Presents news briefs on the information systems sector as of June 1987. Plan of Pergamon Orbit InfoLine to add two databases from International Patent Document Center; Details of the translation service offered by the Japanese Association for International Chemical Information for Japanese patents and other documents cited in Chemical Abstracts Service's CA File; Description of Newswire ASAP, a full text database to be introduced by Information Access Company on Dialog.

This article reports on the addition of two databases at the Dialog information retrieval system in June 1985. Aerospace Database provides worldwide coverage of scientific-technological literature from more than 1,600 periodicals, as well as from conferences, books, theses, and space sciences, aerodynamics, aircraft and aerospace systems, communications and navigation, propulsion, energy production and conversion, structural engineering and analysis, advanced materials, laser and robotic technologies, chemistry, geosciences, environmental studies, computer sciences, and relevant social, economic, and legal issues. Meanwhile, Religion Index covers a spectrum of religious and theological subjects including church history, biblical studies, theology, history of religions, sociology and psychology of religion, and many areas in the humanities.

This article reports on the inclusion of the AP News in Dialog's online databases as of November 1984. The complete text of news from Associated Press is available 48 hours after transmission by the wire service. AP News is actually organized into two files on Dialog--a current file updated daily and a back file retrospective to July 11, 1984. The current file, at any given time, will include only the most current three months of news. The back file records will be retained permanently on the system for archival purposes. In addition to the full text of each store, records include a descriptive story tag, the publication date and time of transmission on the news wire, byline, news category, geographic origin of the story, word count and priority indication.

This article reports that Dialog, offering its first gateway service, began marketing the electronic edition of Official Airline Guides (OAG) to subscribers in October 1984. OAG contains the latest airline flight schedule information on approximately 1,500,000 direct and connecting schedules of more than 700 airlines worldwide, as well as fares for North American travel. In addition to complete schedule information for virtually every scheduled carrier throughout the world, OAG provides nearest airport information for travel planning to cities without air service. Flights may be selected by fare, by schedule, or by the best combination of fare and schedule. Since OAG is a gateway service, users will be automatically transferred to the producer's system once they have logged on to Dialog.