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CREDIT REFERENCE
INFORMATION is also now available from Information Edge on
Australian companies.
NEWSTEXT
has revamped its search engine and now has a much deeper archive of the
Courier Mail and other News Ltd publications than available through other
services.
AND PRE 1975
HANDWRITTEN INDEXES
Information Edge is also privileged to now
own a microfiche version of a fantastic and rare index of NSW newspapers
covering the period from 1910 - 1975 - yes BEFORE the Internet and before
online!.
Although the handwritten card index
replicated on the microfilm is cryptic and occasionally the handwriting is
difficult to read, it provides unique coverage of Sydney newspapers for the
period.
In addition to very brief one line
abstracts, the page and column of articles is provided.
It will be a great resource for anyone in
public relations, advertising or other fields needing historical
information between 1910 and 1975 on topics such as:
- Two-up gambling in Sydney
- Celebrations in Martin Place in 1945
- The history of the coal industry in NSW
- That famous incident regarding Captain
de Groot on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
This now enables us to trace the best newspaper
coverage quickly using the handwritten index compiled over 65 years by
dedicated indexers!
NSW PARLIAMENT ONLINE
The brilliant web site available from the NSW
Parliament enabling anyone to check on Hansard for instance since 1991. Is
a huge leap forward from the old copperplate writing on the microfiche
index.
www.parliament.nsw.gov.au
INTERNET TIPS
In February 2002, Alta Vista changed its search
default Boolean operator from OR to AND . This will result
in significant changes to search output.
For example, since February 2002, if you are
looking for information on MOTORCARS and you use these words in Alta
Vista:
AUTOMOBILES CARS MOTORCARS
Alta Vista will only retrieve records that
mention all three words . Before February the default Boolean
operator was OR - so then you could throw a whole lot of similar terms into
the search box and Alta Vista would retrieve documents that mentioned at
least one of them.
WHO'S LINKING TO
YOUR SITE?
Have you checked to see who is linking to your
website, with or without your permission? It's one way to find out who is
interested in what you are doing, Using some of the usual search engines it
is very easy:
In AltaVista (www.altavista.com)
in the search box enter link: followed by your URL
In Google (www.google.com)
in the Advanced page enter your URL and choose the "in links to the page:
in the "Occurrences" section.
In HotBot (www.hotbot.com)
in the "Look For" box choose "links to this URL" and enter your URL in the
search box.
SOME USEFUL SITES-
STATISTICS
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released
2001 Census data for Australia, some of which is available free:
www.abs.gov.au
For a useful site for Canadian statistics
have a look at
www.statcan.ca
SOME USEFUL SITES-
MEDICINE
The PubMed site for free access to Medline is:
www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
Our biomedical clients may find this site of
use on occasions also:
www.tripdatabase.com.
This is an "evidence based" healthcare
site that searches over 75 sites to produce nearly 30,000 links to journals,
textbooks and more.
LONDON AND
LONGBEACH, LA
A recent brief trip to attend a Factiva
Information Professional Advisory Board meeting in London and the annual
conference of the Association of Independent Information Professionals in
Long Beach, LA was useful for identifying new sources and new contacts.
We have now located companies that can:
- Undertake work for us in Singapore
- Undertake telephone research in the US
- Locate documents in Washington
For further information please contact our
office.
GIVING SEARCH BRIEFS
Setting out what information is required is an
important part of the search process and can lower search costs and improve
search results by enabling the searcher to focus correctly on precisely what
is needed.
Here are a few tips (based on a real, but
old, request) to help ensure that the search results match what is
needed:-
TRAINING
For details of forthcoming training on Creating
the Future - on strategic positioning of libraries or Strategies & Tactics
for Super Searchers , please contact our Office |
