From the Editor

More content! New features! Dialog presents new scientific and technical content and new search features on ProQuest Dialog™. Read all about it in ProQuest Dialog updates. Be sure to try the Free File of the Month—PASCAL, a multi-disciplinary scientific and technical database. And get involved with Dialog's social networking options—follow us on Twitter and visit our new Facebook site. All of this and more is in this issue of the Chronolog.

Tell us what you think
In January we notified you of the upcoming survey about the Chronolog. We urge you to take a few moments to complete the survey and add your feedback about the Chronolog to Twitter or our new Facebook site. We look forward to hearing your comments about what you like as well as what you would like to see covered in the Chronolog. The results of this survey will help us to further tailor the Chronolog content to articles you want to read in the format you prefer.

 ProQuest Dialog Updates

Science content grows

ProQuest Dialog has just added even more science and technical content. For the engineer and technical searcher, such renowned databases as Inspec^® and TULSA™: Petroleum Abstracts add breadth to the Energy and Engineering categories. Two new Foodline databases and Food Science and Technology Abstracts enhance the Food & Agriculture category, and with the addition of Drug Information Fulltext and DIOGENES^® FDA Regulatory Updates, the Pharmaceutical & Biomedical category now contains 44 databases.

New Feature: Smart Search helps users increase precision and scope of search

A new user of ProQuest Dialog asked the following question that should be helpful to all searchers especially those who have the task of training new users.

As a professional searcher, I am aware of indexed controlled vocabulary of files on Dialog such as MEDLINE^® and Embase^® that enable me to find rich data that has other connecting terms. However, I am keen to help my users increase the precision and scope of their searches to find authoritative content that may not be available on the "free web." How can this be achieved on the new service?

In ProQuest Dialog, a new feature "Smart Search" enhances a user's search experience by surfacing suggested terms often used by databases offering indexed controlled vocabulary terms. Here's how it works.

When running a search in the new ProQuest Dialog, the search engine automatically evaluates the search terms to provide relevant controlled vocabulary terms from the indexing. These terms display as links in a "Suggested Subjects" box above the results list. Users can click a subject term to retrieve a further list of relevant documents.

It's easier on ProQuest Dialog
Translate records quickly

How many times have you run searches and retrieved articles in a language you don't understand? For this reason many Dialog searchers tend to limit their retrieval to records in English only. But what if they missed something right on target because the answer happened to be in French or Chinese? ProQuest Dialog provides a feature that lets you translate records at the click of a button.

Here's how it works: run a search. When you come across what appears to be a good article in a different language, click its title to get to the full record display. A link to Translate appears above the abstract or text. Click the link, and choose the language from which to translate and the language to which to translate. For example, use the drop-down menu to choose French, the language of the abstract, and select English as the destination language.

The full record appears with a machine-readable English translation of the abstract or text (with a disclaimer that this is a quick translation for your convenience and is not meant to replace human translation).

Copy and paste the translation into a word-processing software or print the record from your browser using the File>Print feature.

Note: You can only export, cite, email, print or save the record as file in its original language.

Online training sessions help you learn more about ProQuest Dialog

Have you been curious about the new Proquest Dialog but haven't had time to learn what it's all about? Join an online session with one of our expert trainers. Introduction to ProQuest Dialog provides instruction on the key features and functionality of the new service. Discover how to search for, find, use and share your research, and learn where to access additional support, including tutorials, help pages and documentation. A broad range of pharmaceutical, biomedical and engineering content is now available, and the complete collection of intellectual property and business content will be added in future releases. The 60-minute session covers:

• Single search box, subject areas and product start pages
• Advanced search
• Search results — faceted search options, document preview and more
• Right tools at the right time — translate, cite this, export and similar items
• Search and publication alerts — email and RSS
• My Research
• Tagging and shared lists.

Sessions are available February 17 and 24. Register now!

 February Highlights

Free File of the Month

Scientific and technical information are not only key factors fueling innovation but also are essential components of any research process. In today's fast moving environment, having access to the latest scientific information and research in a multidisciplinary, multilingual database like PASCAL (File 144) is all important. You can see why for yourself, as PASCAL is the Dialog Free File of the Month for February.

Known as one of the world's leading sources of life and physical sciences information, PASCAL includes the core of the world's scientific and technical literature with European literature being especially well covered. The chart shows principal subject areas and the percentage of records in the database. In addition, a number of fields are covered exhaustively, often in cooperation with a variety of specialized research organizations. For topics at the intersection of several disciplines and seldom covered in specialized databases, PASCAL's multidisciplinary coverage is especially useful.

Sources range from international journal articles to dissertations to technical reports and conference proceedings. PASCAL is also enabled with eLinks for obtaining full-text articles. Updated weekly, coverage dates back to 1973.

PASCAL document translations on ProQuest Dialog
A multilingual database, PASCAL includes keywords in French, English and in some cases, Spanish; so, it can be searched in those languages regardless of the original document language. Because PASCAL is also available on ProQuest Dialog, the interface's new translation feature makes it easy to see translations of all the bibliographic records. (See "It's easy on ProQuest Dialog" for more on the new translation feature.)

Review the overview of PASCAL and register for a Webinar Feburary 10 to learn more about PASCAL. Try File 144 in February for free up to $100 (either DialUnits or connect time) to expand your sources for scientific and technical information!

Visit us on Facebook!

Dialog is all about information. Throughout our long history our goal has been to stay connected to and to support our customers. We want to continue to expand the deep relationships we have developed through responsive and immediate customer contact. In 2009, when Dialog joined Twitter, Vice President of Market Development Libby Trudell noted that Twitter enabled nearly instantaneous communication with the Dialog community. It was yet another step in a long tradition of building feedback channels with customers. With social media—blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other tools—becoming more integral to business communication, Dialog has expanded its digital footprint with a new Facebook site and a Dialog blog coming soon.

Follow Dialog on Twitter at twitter.com/DialogLLC and Facebook at www.facebook.com/dialogLLC . If you haven't created a Twitter account, start now, and then follow Dialog on Twitter. Our tweets inform followers about the new ProQuest Dialog service, search tips and techniques from experts, events and promotions, training sessions and self-paced modules to help you search and much more. And your tweets, replies and comments help us to continue to provide products and services important to you.

When you "Like" Dialog LLC on Facebook, you'll receive wall posts of interest, you can comment on or Share those you like.

As your first goal for using social media, give us your suggestions on the Chronolog by completing the short survey or sending us a tweet to Twitter or your comment on Facebook.

 Discover: Scientific & Technical Content Updates

Cited references added to Inspec

Inspec^® (Files 2, 3, 4), featuring scientific and technical literature, is an important source for electrical engineering, communications, computers and information technology. Beginning with the first update in 2011, Inspec will contain searchable (CR=) and displayable (CR) cited references. Locating cited references is useful for finding current articles on a topic, identifying the top researchers in a field and more.

MEDLINE reload update

Daily updating of MEDLINE^® (Files 154,155) has resumed. The first update code is UD=20101209. Approximately two to three daily updates should be loaded per day to eliminate the backlog of pending daily updates. During this period, customers will receive Alerts at a greater frequency than usual.

Those with Alerts in MEDLINE may want to consider updating search strategies to take into account changes in the MeSH^® thesaurus. Be sure to check out the MeSH vocabulary changes for 2011.

Beginning with the 2011 updates, a valid abstract text label found in published structured abstracts (e.g., Introduction, Goals, Study Design, Findings, Discussion) has a standardized Abstract Category. The five standardized Abstract Categories are Background, Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. These standardized Abstract Categories are search-only fields in Files154 and 155 using either the prefix AC= or the suffix /AC.

A reload of the complete MEDLINE database is underway. When the reload is complete, the MeSH descriptors in all records in the database will match the new MeSH thesaurus.

Note: The DataStar reload of MEDLINE-related databases is complete. All of these files use the 2011 MeSH terms in the updated thesaurus (MVOC). The previous MeSH terms are still available for reference in the new database MV10. Check the MEDL-BASE database for more details.

 Validate: Intellectual Property Content Updates

DWPI Manual Code Revision

The Derwent World Patents Index^® (DWPI^SM) (Files 351/352, 350) Manual coding system annual revision has now been completed and will be used by the editorial teams to code records appearing from DWPI Update 201101 onward. CPI and EPI Coding Manuals and reference guides have all been updated to include the 2011 revisions.

As with previous revisions, the coding has been updated to:

• Reflect changes in technology
• Take into account external and internal suggestions for improvements
• Make enhancements to the code descriptions and scope notes to improve the consistency of code application by the editorial teams.

From Update 201101 there will be 819 changes to the Codes, broken down as follows:

There are currently 23,318 codes across the three industry sectors, with 22,016 being actively applied. (The retired codes remain on record for searching purposes but are no longer actively applied.)

Advantages of DWPI Manual Codes

• Hierarchical system giving more detail as the code gets longer (up to seven levels)
• Consistently applied across all the DWPI patent authorities to highlight the novel technical aspects of the invention and the application(s)
• Multiple codes applied to a single document to cover all relevant aspects
• Updated annually by technology specialists based on technology trends and customer feedback
• Produces unique relevant hits when compared to text searching and IPCs
• More consistently indexed than IPCs
• Intellectually employed, based on the patent content, and technology specialist's knowledge of the area of invention.

A Proximal and a Distal Tip
by Ron Kaminecki, MS, CPL, JD, director, IP segment, U.S. patent attorney

Pearl growing
In 1911, Kokichi Mikimoto of Japan received a U.S. patent (988,889) for, "Process for treating oysters and other mollusks," which detailed his method of growing round pearls by injecting a drop of mercury into an oyster. This caused the Mollusca to cover the drop with multiple layers of nacre until a pearl was cultured. We can use his patented wisdom to develop a method of growing a search starting with a single hit.

Imagine sitting at your desk disgusted that you cannot find a patent you just know exists. Worse, ever have someone toss a patent on your desk, and you are too embarrassed to ask how they found it?

This happens more often than not. For example, sometimes you will do a search and retrieve a reasonable number of hits. But after reviewing them, you determine only one sticks out like a bottle of ketchup in a wine rack and is closest to what you want. Or, someone just drops a patent into your in-basket and asks for you to find more like it.

Diving for oysters in shallow waters
In either instance, the task of finding more is nearly done! Because you have a patent in hand, you now have a cornucopia of potential search terms to choose from, when you consider the assignee, inventor, backward (and with a little work, forward) citations, indexing from at least the International Patent Classification (IPC) codes and with a little work, other codes like U.S. Classifications or ECLA or F-Terms, keywords in the examples section, legalese in the claims, not to mention ancillary information that may take a little bit of effort like filing strategy, trademarks or even licenses. Yes, an enterprising searcher just relishes a full plate like a spot-on patent simply because there are so many entry points for more information.
In pearl growing, you start with a single document and then use pieces from it to find more documents that are similar. You can use almost any of the aforementioned pieces (fields) of the patent; probably the best to start with would be the classification codes. Because there are many different class codes that can be used, you may wish to use the codes; but, but for U.S. patents it is best to use U.S. codes. This is because U.S. examiners prefer to use U.S. codes to index U.S. patents and then they use a Concordance to find the closest match, though the IPCs on U.S. patents tend to be broad. Thus, whenever given a choice, use U.S. Class Codes over IPCs when searching U.S. patents.

What I call pearl growing you call periculture
For example, the title for US 5,338,575 is, "Process for the quasi-continuous decaffeination of raw coffee," which is a fairly descriptive title. However, the enhanced title for the same patent from IFI CLAIMS is, "High pressure solvent extraction using water saturated with carbon dioxide, then rapid depressurization for expansion, rinsing, drying, roasting, recovering pure crystalline caffeine from aqueous solvent." Both titles are good sources of keywords that could be used for finding more documents (decaffeination, recovering...caffeine, etc.), but consider looking up the U.S. Class Code, which is 426-427. If you look up this code, you will see its definition is: "Food or edible material: Processes, compositions and products; Processes; Extraction utilizing liquid as extracting medium; Removing caffeine or tannin." Thus, the code 426-427 stands for exactly (in this case) the concept of removing caffeine, which is the focus of this patent. To find similar patents, simply select the U.S. Class Code, and you will be rewarded with titles such as:

• "Method and system for extracting a solute from a fluid using dense gas and a porous membrane"
• "Process for removal of basic materials"
• "Process for the continuous extraction of mixtures of organic substances with supercritical solvents"

Good luck finding any of these using just keywords! And, if you do present a requester with such results, make sure you state you used class codes and some of the concepts are implied, not necessarily found spelled out in the text.

Contact me directly at for a worked out example or to schedule a WebEx if you wish to go over this method live.

What you call periculture the International Patent Classification calls A01K-61/00
The reason this method works so well is that patent examiners are faced with new technology that can be either unnamed or poorly named by the applicants. By using class codes to identify the technology, no matter what it is called by the applicant, examiners can group similar patents together and search their document base easily. Searchers outside of patent offices can then use these same patent codes to perform searches that can find patents (grow the pearls) that could not have been found otherwise. Here pearl growing used U.S. Class Codes, but patent searching depends on knowing about this and other alternative strategies. Not everything is black and white; maybe that's why the word grey is spelled correctly two different ways.

 Learn about ProQuest

Everything you need to access the all-new ProQuest platform

ProQuest has created a new Web page called, Everything You Need to Access the All-New ProQuest Platform. Here, you'll find new training materials, frequently asked questions and links to the migration support center, training registration and support materials.

• Click links to find answers to such questions as: "What happens to my usage after I migrate?"; "What databases are available on the new platform?"; and "What kinds of changes/similarities will there be on the new platform?

• Support materials include a step-by-step overview of SwitchedOn, a User Guide and a Quick Start Reference Overview.

• Choose among a variety of 60-minute Webinars designed to help you get to know all of the new features and take advantage of the functionality. Sign up for an Introduction to the New ProQuest Platform, attend a session that explains the My Research feature, or learn about the ProQuest Administrator Module. Need a class right now? Scroll down the training page to listen to a recorded session.

The new platform makes it easier for searchers, librarians and library users. For librarians, the platform provides a single administration system to run enhanced usage reports. For searchers at all levels, the platform provides a better way to search, find, use and share information.