News Library News Online
Vol. 22, No. 4/Summer 2000

Table of Contents
Regular Features

New This Month

News Library News
SLA News Division Home

 

Tech Tips
By Laura Mann 

Changes Ahead for Dialog

Last March, Thomson Corporation, the Toronto-based information conglomerate, paid $275 million for the Information Services Division of the Dialog Corporation. Patrick Sommers, current COO of Dialog, has joined Thomson as President and CEO of Dialog and will report to Ronald H. Schlosser, President and CEO of Thomson's Scientific, Reference & Healthcare division.

When asked in an interview with FIND/SVP INFORMATION ADVISOR how the merger would affect Dialog pricing, Sommers stated, "Our objective is to have a simpler pricing plan. We don't need to give out discounts, but we don't want to increase costs. We want users to understand the pricing." Sommers predicted that new pricing would be implemented at the end of this year. He envisions better service for Dialog users, as well as an increase in the content of the database.


Merlin Users Unite!

Linda Henderson, Library Director of the Providence Journal, reports that a Merlin users group met at the SLA conference in June. According to Henderson, "Brian Hanser from T/One attended and we discussed such topics as field searching, saving pages as PDF files, text extractors, linking photos to text, archiving digital photos and work flow. Brian took our questions and promised to report back to T/One to get answers and to pass along our comments."
 
Henderson would like to hear from division members who are interested in forming a permanent, ongoing Merlin Users Group. She can be reached at lhenders@projo.com.



Online Books at ABC

C.B. Hayden, Director of Research Services for ABC News, reports that his library "just started acquiring full-text books from netLibrary, and we're beginning to build them into our web OPAC as well as onto our subject-related intranet pages. We're very excited about the opportunities for customizing this type of content for our users. We're finding that not only can we add a link to a book from our intranet pages, but we can link right down to specific chapters of books to really focus on specific information our users need. And every 'book' we acquire virtually exists on every ABC News desktop in all our bureaus."


U.S. Government Mega-site

Bill Lucey, who monitors the wires daily for the latest tech news to help him with his research, sent the following tip:

President Clinton has announced that the federal government will launch a web site that will subsume all federal information available publicly through the Internet. The site, for example, will offer individuals and small businesses a single source for all available government grants and contract Opportunities. Clinton was quoted as saying: "Whether you want crucial information in starting a small business, or you want to track your Social Security benefits, you can do it all on one place, 24 hours a day, seven days a week." The site's address will be www.firstgov.gov.

According to government press releases, the web site is meant to cut red tape, make government more responsive to the needs of citizens and expand opportunities for participation in our democracy through 'e-government.' The site is free and will be developed at no cost to taxpayers. It will have the ability to search half a billion documents in less than one-quarter of a second and to handle at least 100 million searches a day. At present, U.S. government information and services are located on at least 20,000 different web sites.


Laura Mann is a researcher at Newsday in New York. You can contact her at lmann@newsday.com.


News Library News
SLA News Division Home

The page was reformatted on 4/8/03. The content, including URLs and contact information, on this page has not been updated to preserve the historical record.

Comments about News Library News should go to the editor.
Comments about the Web site should go to the Webmaster: newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com