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Support : eNewsletters : Chronolog Archives
From the Editor Dialog has it all! Whatever your research or information need, you can rely on Dialog to deliver for you. This issue illustrates Dialog's versatility and ability to attend to your wide range of research needs.
And, if that weren't enough, read the search tips and training notes so you can see for yourself that Dialog has it all! QUOSA makes search results easier to manage on DataStar Dialog and QUOSA have teamed up to enable their shared customers to explore fulltext and search results from Dialog's DataStar platform, using QUOSA's powerful document management tools. QUOSA creates tools specifically designed to streamline the acquisition, review, and analysis of large bodies of scholarly articles — ideal for professional searchers. QUOSA will also enable better management of search results and imported documents. "This relationship is part of Dialog's ongoing commitment to make Dialog content easier to use and analyze," said Suzanne BeDell, Dialog General Manager. "QUOSA is an industry leader in document management products. Combining its skills with Dialog's deep, authoritative content sets helps our customers to be more efficient as they process and use the information they uncover using the DataStar platform." Read the press release for more information. Quantum2: An information professional's link to Dialog Is your role as information professional changing? Are you so busy providing a myriad of services that you have no time to strategize? Do you feel the need to move into more compelling roles to raise your profile within your organization? If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, then Dialog's Quantum2 program can help you. The Quantum2 team recently sat down with us to talk about Quantum2 — who they are, what role the program plays, and how its services support the information professional in everything they do. Q: To begin, can you explain what Quantum2 is and its mission? A: Quantum2 is the Dialog leadership development program for information professionals. It was developed in recognition of the need for ongoing evolution of roles in the information professional community, and is offered in the spirit of mutual benefit. The program is designed to help information professionals expand their services and improve the flow of information within their organizations. It provides a wide array of hands-on training and resources. Our mission is to inspire information professionals to increase their visibility and value by sharing best practices, ideas and insights on how to do it. Q: What is the history of the Quantum2 program? A: In 1993, Dialog launched the first Quantum program, starting with posting ideas and tips and a job opportunity network. In 1994, the program evolved to include workshops presented at Dialog Updates. These early sessions provided tools and techniques to help information professionals promote their services to clients and develop their own skills for organizational effectiveness. The concept of InfoStars was introduced in 1995. The idea was that InfoStars were to be information-professional role models who provide leadership through example to other Info Pros. In 2001, the entire program was reborn as Quantum2, merging the best of the previous program with new initiatives to demonstrate Dialog's continued support for information professionals. The newsletter was reintroduced as an electronic resource and Web conferencing enabled new ways to expand the workshop program. With ProQuest, the Quantum2 program continues to grow. Q: Who makes up the Quantum2 team? A: Quantum2 is a worldwide program so we have two directors, one for North America and the other for international clients. Besides a geographic area of responsibility, each director also focuses on specific activities of the program, for example, creating workshop sessions or writing the Quantum2 newsletter. Team members include training consultants in the United States, Europe and South Africa. These professionals conduct workshops at conferences, provide online training, create learning materials and develop continuing education courses. Q: What activities support the mission of the Quantum2 program? A: Quantum2 offers training and a number of other resources to support information professionals, including workshops, both online and at conferences and events around the world. For example, "Best Practices for Information Services: Achieving Operational Excellence" and "Analyzing Clients' Needs" are two sessions planned for the Special Libraries Association (SLA) in the United States, and a Web course "Strategic Planning for the Information Center" will be given in June and September. Other resources consist of publications and articles, including the Quantum2 Highlights newsletter, podcasts of conversations on topics of interest to Info Pros, case studies, marketing and management tools to help promote the information center. The following examples illustrate the types of online workshops offered by the Quantum2 program. They are conducted in different time zones to accommodate all users worldwide. Note too the titles of papers from the Quantum2 leadership series. Q: You mentioned InfoStars earlier. What is an InfoStar? How do InfoStars help other information professionals? A: Quantum2 InfoStars are inspiring examples of creativity and innovation. They may be staff-level librarians who inspire their colleagues, information center managers who act as catalysts for change, or senior managers in the organization who champion and support the information center. Their stories provide insights into their professional achievements and leadership qualities, and enable them to serve as role models for others. Anyone who demonstrates the InfoStar characteristics can be nominated by a colleague. Two sets of InfoStars are announced each year. The key characteristics we look for in identifying an InfoStar are:
Q: For a small team, you really accomplish a lot. For my final question: Why is your team's role so important to Dialog customers? A: We recognize the information professional is facing change. We also know that no one solution fits all and no one solution stays the same. We are very proud of examples that customers have shared where Quantum2 helped them evolve professionally and gain support for change from their management. This is only possible because of the close relationships Dialog has formed with customers over time. There has been a great partnership between Dialog and the information professional community for more than 40 years. With Quantum2 we help them create the shared future. Watch for interviews with other groups at Dialog in the coming months. View an on-demand version of the interview. Check the rates before you go online Do you try to manage your search costs even before you go online? Here's another search tip to help you save time and money. As you begin your search, check the rates for the databases you want to search. There are a number of ways to find the rates of databases online.
Be sure to register for a new one-hour course on "Hints & Tips for Cost-Effective Searching on Dialog." We'll cover a broad range of search tips illustrating ways you can use Dialog special features to minimize your costs and maximize value. Register for this free April 21 session. April Free Files of the Month: Cengage Gale PROMT and Cengage Gale Trade & Industry Database Try searching the two Cengage Gale files—PROMT® (File 16) and Trade & Industry Database™ (File 148)—for free during April. These two files are a must for business searchers. Although each file has a different focus, the two databases complement each other. PROMT is a "one-stop" database with versatility and size that enables you to research a product, its markets, materials used to produce it, competitive products, regulatory issues and other factors that impact a company, industry or business. With its detailed indexing, PROMT makes it easy for you to quickly link events with companies or products, saving you time and allowing you to target the specific kind of information you need. Trade & Industry Database, on the other hand, covers major industries, including international company, product and market information. Each month a different "free file" will be offered, enabling you to use up to $100 of free searching (either DialUnits or Connect Time) in each featured file. Output and Alerts charges are not included. For more details about searching the free files, see the Dialog Web site. The Free File of the Month is announced in each issue of the Chronolog, as well as on the Dialog Web site. Review the overview of the Cengage Gale databases, and try these complementary files for free in April. Over 100 million unique chemical substances in updated CHEMSEARCH As of April 2009, CHEMSEARCH™ (File 398) is now completely up-to-date with more than 100 million unique chemical substances. In addition to everyday substances most people might recognize as traditional chemicals, this file also contains what are called biosequences, such as portions of proteins and fragments of DNA that make up living organisms. The comprehensive coverage of chemical substances in CHEMSEARCH makes File 398 an excellent resource for both chemical and biological searchers. A new search prefix (RE=) represents a count of the number of records in which the chemical substance has been referenced in CA Search®: Chemical Abstracts (File 399). This prefix can give you an idea as to whether the chemical is newly discovered (a low RE= count) or the compound is either very common or a very "hot" new entity in the chemical world (a high RE= count). The MAP feature of File 398 also allows you to extract a set of CAS® Registry Numbers (MAP RN) or chemical synonyms (MAP SY) and carry them over to any other file to broaden your search into chemical and other scientific literature. The Bluesheet has been updated to reflect these changes. Save time searching: More Korean and Chinese patent data available in English The coverage of Asian patent data in Derwent World Patents Index® (DWPISM) (Files 350, 351, 352) has been significantly improved with new English content for China and Korea. This new content further strengthens the position of Thomson Reuters as the leading provider of value-added Asian patent information.
Enhanced Data Full DWPI value-add is provided for Chinese and Korean patent basics in DWPI. This includes DWPI titles and abstracts written to the Thomson Reuters editorial rules. Deep indexing is applied to records in sections A, B, C, and E that have significant chemistry coverage. The first batch of the 2008 published Korean data was loaded into DWPI First ViewSM (File 331) in Update 200850. The DWPI First View records include machine translations of author titles and abstracts, enabling early alerting while the full value-add is being completed. A Proximal and a Distal Tip By Ron Kaminecki, MS, CPL, JD, Director, IP Segment, US Patent Attorney
Not that I did any magic; the client owned one patent that had expired and did not think to give it to the attorney, little realizing that under certain circumstances some patents can be reinstated. With patent assignees, you can never be too certain because assignee searches can be very difficult. Extra care must be taken in searching ownership, and this column will only scratch the surface (though I'll cover more in future columns). What is owned by an assignee? Assignees are the owners of the rights to patents. Until a patent is formally reassigned to the owner, it is owned by the inventors, even if the inventors will eventually assign the patent to their employer. Many companies take advantage of these simple facts to hide their ownership. This can be done by applying for a patent under the name of the inventors and not filling in the paperwork for assignment until after the application publishes. Thus, the patent application would publish as though it were owned by the inventors, foiling outsiders from finding the true owners. Of course, after the application is published, the real owners will file the paperwork and be unveiled when the patent issues; however, that could take several years, thus protecting the eventual owners from being known for some time. This makes it difficult for searchers to keep track of what the competition is doing, even with Alert profiles containing assignee names of their competitors. This is where CLAIMS®/U.S. Patents (File 340) can come to the rescue. The folks at CLAIMS claim (I was really trying to work those two words together) to have recovered 89 percent of these hidden owners. They make such hidden owners searchable in the patent assignee field (PA=) and also in the Probable Assignee field (PS=). By searching for patent assignees as PA= (usually by EXPANDing PA=), searchers can find information that would not be available otherwise. Note that it is important to actually point out that these are probable assignees but not necessarily the actual ones; once that is known, however, the information is very useful. What about other databases? Many companies will use internal counsel for filing patents, so a patent that has the name of the company in the legal representative field (LR=) can give you a clue to the owner's name. Often, searchers do not know it is possible to stack prefix codes together when searching, for example, SELECT PA,LR= to find patents in which either the patent assignee or the legal representative field contains the search term. While you cannot EXPAND such concatenated terms, SELECTing them is quick and effective. And, if you wish to combine patent files with non-patent ones, feel free to SELECT PA,LR,CS,CO= to save time and pick up the Corporate Source and Company Name fields too. There is a lot more to searching patent assignees, and, unlike the client mentioned in the first paragraph, we won't keep it a secret. EMBASE, EMBASE Classic reloaded with 2009 EMTREE thesaurus EMBASE (EMED), EMBASE Classic (EMXX) and EMTREE (EVOC) have been reloaded with the 2009 version of the EMTREE thesaurus. Changes to EMTREE include 837 new concepts as preferred terms bringing the total number of EMTREE terms to over 56,000. Both drug and medical terms were added. Moreover, 40 terms were changed. A full description of the 2009 EMTREE, including lists of all new and changed terms, is available. Quick-codes for HUMAN=YES and ANIMAL=YES have also been simplified to make retrieval more transparent. For more information specifically about the changes to the HUMAN=YES and ANIMAL=YES quick-codes, refer to the relevant appendices of the EMBASE database guide, available online in the BASE database: search as BASE-EMED. For more information about EMBASE on DataStar, refer to the online Datasheet. Highlight: British Nursing Index on DataStar According to the chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom, more nurses than ever are needed. For example, on a typical day over 800,000 people will visit their General Practitioner, approximately 94,000 will be admitted to the hospital in an emergency, 35,000+ people will visit the hospital for planned treatment, 28,000 sight tests will be carried out and 18,000 calls will be made to National Health Service Direct, the health service's 24-hour information line. Nurses are part of, and often lead, the thousands of healthcare teams who deliver this care throughout the country every day of the year.1 As the population ages and nursing takes on a more complex role, nurses and midwives need to be able to count on information to keep up to date quickly and easily on the latest techniques and treatments. British Nursing Index (BNID), a highly-focused, bibliographic database comprising over 250 of the most popular and relevant journal sources in United Kingdom nursing, midwifery and health visiting, as well as selected coverage of nursing-related topics from medical and other health journals, provides that tool. Several unique features in BNID provide coverage and terminology relevant to the specific needs of the nursing profession:
BNID complements other health databases that offer more global but less tailored coverage of nursing literature. The complete guide to the British Nursing Index database is available in the BASE database — search as BASE-BNID. 1Dr. Peter Carter, "The Future of Nursing" The Independent. April 16, 2008. RefWorks-COS to manage your research results You are not alone. With the number of articles researchers read each year increasing substantially and with the average amount of time available to spend decreasing, the need for tools to manage this massive influx of electronic information is even more crucial to the work flow process. RefWorks-COS, from ProQuest, is a knowledge-management solution that provides information tools to support researchers at every step of the research process. This Web-based research-management tool improves your effectiveness as you use multiple information sources to access, organize, collaborate, disseminate and publish. The suite of products shown here lets you:
Another component of the solution is RefAware, a personal, current awareness service, covering over 8,700 peer-reviewed and non-refereed sources in multidisciplinary subjects, providing researchers with immediate access to new research and publications in their field—all within hours of being posted online. Visit the RefWorks to find tutorials in different languages, detailed descriptions, documentation and much more. Contact your Dialog sales representative to find out how RefWorks can help you. |
QUOSA makes search results easier to manage on DataStar Quantum2: An information professional's link to Dialog Business & News Content Updates Intellectual Property Content Updates May Free File of the Month: ABI/INFORM Make note of the featured File of the Month for May: ABI/INFORM® (File 15). ABI/INFORM covers most aspects of business, including company histories, competitive intelligence and new product development. For more about this database, see an overview of the file and look for more information on this free file in the May Chronolog. Reminder: CHEMNAME® (File 301) removed from Dialog As a reminder, CHEMNAME® (File 301) was removed from Dialog on March 31, 2009, to eliminate unnecessary duplication of data already in CHEMSEARCH™ (File 398) and in order to update File 398 more quickly. Join Dialog at SLA in June
The Special Libraries Association (SLA), a professional organization representing some 11,000 information professionals, invites you to attend the 2009 SLA Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in Washington, D.C., June 14-17, 2009. Don't miss keynoter Colin Powell, a panel moderated by Judy Woodruff on the state of the information profession now and in the future, and more than 300 learning opportunities and networking events for the savvy information professional. Dialog congratulates SLA on its Centennial! We are proud Major Conference Partners of the Annual Conference and will conduct two Quantum CE courses. Don't miss the premier conference for information professionals! Promoting yourself and your service How often have you thought to yourself — why are some clients still asking what is it we " really" do? Isn't it obvious? How can I communicate what it is we do, and promote it so they think of us when they need a problem solved? Answers to these and other such questions on how to promote yourself and the service you provide to your organization can be found in our Quantum2 Conversations podcast "Marketing Promotion." Download it now. Training schedule Check the training schedule for April through June for new classes in all regions worldwide. Besides new product training classes, sign up for a special session such as: "Chemistry 101" or "Trademark Search Basics." NEW training materials: Searching Trademarks workbook If you need a guide to step you through particular applications, as well as identify specific databases on your subject, download new Dialog workbooks. The new Introduction to Searching Trademarks Using DialogClassic Web™ workbook in PDF format describes the differences among the trademark files and contains applications, including searching for exact trademarks, owners, class codes and goods and services and more. Just follow the command summaries to search the most common trademark questions. Dialog Search Tip: Finding Regulatory Information in PROMT If you are looking for regulatory information, try Cengage Gale PROMT® (File 16). With very strong coverage of international and domestic regulatory issues, PROMT makes it easy for you to quickly link events with companies or products, saving you time and allowing you to target the specific kind of information you need. The file uses special indexing—Event Names (EN=, /EN) and Event Codes (EC=)—to identify articles based on the action of the article and the company or companies involved. For articles about government regulatory information use Event Codes 930 and 940. The whole 900 section covers government: taxes, international economics, international politics, regulations, government domestic functions, and legal issues and crime. Browse the Event Code list. Next, to search for regulations pertaining to particular product sectors, use any of these fields: Product Name (PN= /PN), U.S. Standard & Industrial Classification Codes (SC=) and NAICS Codes (NC=). EXPAND PN= to identify appropriate Product Names. You can quickly conduct a search connecting medical equipment and instruments with articles about government regulations using the following strategy: BEGIN 16 CURRENT Try the search in PROMT during the month of April for free. See details about the Free File of the Month promotion. DataStar® Search Tip: Searching DataStar Classic on DialogClassic Web DataStar command searchers, did you know that you can log onto DialogClassic Web™ with your DataStar User ID and search DataStar? One advantage of searching DataStar on DialogClassic Web is that you can see your entire session in the Output Buffer, rather than having to press the back button to see your previous search steps. Use all the DataStar commands you normally use, including ..REPEAT, ..SORT, ..LIMIT, ..DEDUP and ..ROOT, and your records appear just the way you're used to seeing them on DataStar. You get the best of both worlds, with the "dot, dot" commands and full advantage of most of the features in DialogClassic Web, including Mark Text, using the Editor tab and the History tab. Just as you can with Dialog, you can load a search script into the Type-Ahead buffer, or type it in that space before logging on. If you do this, click the padlock icon to lock the Type-Ahead buffer while you construct the search, and be sure to include an initial <return> to bypass "today's announcements" and get to the database label prompt, so the search statements you typed ahead will follow within the selected database. If you wish to include the LOGOFF command ..off in the script, enter the full word "..off" rather than the shortcut "..o" once your search has run and you wish to log off. Whether using a script or a manual search at the end of your search, enter ..off to end your session. |
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Support Home
View
as PDF
Recently I helped an attorney who was evaluating a handful of patents given
to him by his client. The client
wanted to purchase a company and asked the attorney to determine how much the
target company's patent portfolio was worth. The attorney gave me the name of the target company, and I
searched it in the assignee field of some patent files. The long story
short—I found one more patent than the attorney received from his client!
