Online articles from January 1998

Online archives from January 1998

DIALOG becomes the Dialog Corporation.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... For the first time in its long history, the DIALOG service is operating under a company that bears its name. Now that M.A.I.D. has consummated the purchase of Knight-Ridder Information, Inc. (KRII), the new company is a "pure play" if you're...

Desktop Data & Individual, Inc. announce merger.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... NewsEDGE Corporation is the name of the company resulting from the recently announced merger of Desktop Data and Individual, Inc. The two companies are long-time rivals and Burlington, Massachusetts neighbors. Insiders report talk of a bridge or...

Lexis-Nexis names new CEO.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1998... Hans Gieskes is the new president and CEO of LEXIS-NEXIS, following Ira Siegel who recently retired. Gieskes has been part of the parent company of LEXIS-NEXIS, Reed Elsevier, for 19 year, and most recently he served as vice president of the...

By design: are Microsoft's animated interface agents helpful?(on-line help systems)
January 1, 1998... Meet Clip-It (Figure 1), an animated online character in Office 97 and Microsoft's newest resolution to the long-standing frustration users experience with online help systems. This cartoon-like character is promoted as a natural...

The personal computer: today's workhorse moves into the 21st century.(includes related articles on Apple Computer and protein-based computing)
January 1, 1998... Twenty years ago, Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak began a small computer company in a Cupertino California garage, and spawned a whole new industry and way of life. The personal computer (PC) is now entering its third decade and has clearly gone...

Looking for the grails.(computer trends)(Column)
January 1, 1998... Every year at this time, the folks at ONLINE ask us to take a look at the year just past, and to take a peek forward at what may be in the year to come. As I was pondering this task, I found myself recalling some lines from Conan Doyle: ...

Paper persists: why physical library collections still matter.(disadvantages of eliminating paper records)(Column)
January 1, 1998... There are enormous economic and ecological disadvantages to the all-digital library. Last week, Patrick Hogan called from ALA Editions. "The project's been approved, and the written contract is in the mail." The contract is for a new book...

The end of NewsNet.(rise and fall of an on-line business news service) (includes related articles)
January 1, 1998... "We--and a bunch of others--threw a ton of resources at a problem, without realizing that we were at the crest of a wave, and there was a bigger wave coming behind us." NewsNet's end came fast. Companies usually take a long time to die....

Revisiting Web-based training: a correction and an update.
January 1, 1998... Columnist's Note: This column began as TECHNOTRENDS in January 1990 with an article titled "New Information Technologies--They Just Keep Coming." At that time, I likened the column to a rock skipping across a pond in that it creates many ripples...

Are you into analysis? Remember to emphasize the value you add!(new service ideas for information professionals)
January 1, 1998... Are you into analysis? Address this question to many information professionals and they will demure that they retrieve information but do not provide analysis. If this is your response, here is your wake-up call. As information finds its...

Predicting the future is important, navigating the future is essential.(Column)
January 1, 1998... Editor's Note: It is a delight to be able to congratulate Ed Stear as the winner of the 1997 Information Access Company Information Authorship award for Best Column in ONLINE or DATABASE from July 1996-June 1997. This award is made annually at...

Out-of-the-way sources of market research on the web.
January 1, 1998... For several years, online vendors have made a growing amount of full-text market research available. Publications from such well-known brand names in the market research business as Frost and Sullivan and Datamonitor have become a staple of...

Real-time reports - for the right customer.(First Call Research Direct, on-line corporate and industry research service)
January 1, 1998... F-U-N, FUN!!...When was the last time that element came to mind when evaluating a new online product? With First Call Research Direct, a real-time provider of corporate and industry research delivered to the desktop via the Internet...

Looking ahead to 1998 on the net.(Internet databases)(Column)
January 1, 1998... It is time once again to look toward the future and guess what wonders the Internet holds in store for the new year. Last January in this column, my look ahead to 1997 included a wish list of changes that I hoped would occur. While some of...

The daze of future business research.(internet impacts on research)(Column)
January 1, 1998... If you haven't noticed the seismic changes in the business of business research, perhaps you've been hiding under a rock somewhere. In the rush to move information to end-users' desktops, alterations occur in the very nature of that...

Inevitability: death, taxes, and copyright.
January 1, 1998... As librarians, online searchers, document delivery specialists, writers, editors, consultants, and lecturers, we are faced with uncertainty in complying with and interpreting copyright laws. A copyright session has been held at every...

"Now that I've got it, what do I do with it?" No-nonsense image utilities for non-techies.(software for manipulating online images)
January 1, 1998... Now that you have access to all kinds of information-rich graphics--charts from Business Week, medical images from JAMA, patent drawings, trademark images, photographs from popular magazines--a whole new world has opened up. You're starting to...