From the Editor

You’ve been asking for them, and we are happy to deliver! Read about the new features of ProQuest Dialog™ in this month’s issue, and be sure to check It’s Easy on ProQuest Dialog for tips on how to create groups of your favorite databases. And to learn more about how to navigate within ProQuest Dialog, you’ll want to check out the links to our new YouTube videos.

Changing economic landscape demands competitive content
Economic crises. Elections of new leaders throughout the world. Companies expanding beyond their borders. All of these factors and more may affect the economic landscape and the operations of global businesses. Articles about the Featured File of the month, The Economist, and searching ProQuest’s family of products for comprehensive content will give you a taste of content you need to stay competitive. Ian Pearce also illustrates how he combined Dialog and ProQuest resources in his research on open innovation. Read on.

ProQuest Dialog Updates

New release highlights

Thesaurus hierarchical searching, precise scheduling of Alerts, and streamlined database selection are only some of the changes you will see when you logon to the latest release of ProQuest Dialog. Learn about these enhancements, and try them yourself!

• Thesaurus enhancements. View the Embase^®, MEDLINE^® and ToxFile^® thesauri hierarchically to select exact terms for your search, enabling easier access to scope notes and qualifiers. Designate Explode and/or Major Descriptor to each term in the thesaurus.
• Database selection navigation. Click once on the Home page to view a single screen containing links to all databases, a detailed view by name or industry, or selected shortcuts to your most used databases which you can create in My Research.
• Database shortcuts. Create shortcuts to your own set of your most used databases for quick access. Also set default groups of databases that will automatically open every time you log in using your My Research account. See how below.
• Comprehensive search history. See limits and filters, such as publication date, in the search history and include the complete search strategy on any post-processing actions.
• Help within ProQuest Dialog. Find field codes (e.g., cf for conference information in BIOSIS Previews^®) for your searches in most commonly used databases by clicking Help directly from ProQuest Dialog.
• Alert scheduling. Select the day of the week for your weekly Alert to be delivered.

Check the self-paced modules and register for a class to view these latest features.

It’s easy on ProQuest Dialog

Researchers, start your search engines: create your own database shortcut

Do you have certain favorite databases you usually wish to begin first? You may always want to start out in three major engineering databases, such as Inspec^®, Ei Compendex^® and NTIS: Technical Information Service, and you want to quickly select these databases. All it takes is a couple of steps in Preferences to create and save your own shortcut, which will always be there for you when you want to use it. In fact, you can make it your default content group when you log in. This new feature enables you to save time and energy and bring new efficiency to your searching.

A database shortcut example

1. Click Preferences after logging on to ProQuest Dialog.
2. Click the Database Shortcuts tab. Note: you must be logged into your My Research account, which usually happens automatically when you log in.
3. Click Add shortcut.
4. Enter a name and then scroll down the list of databases to check off the files you wish to store in your own engineering database shortcut.
5. To make file selection easier, click View by Industry.
6. Click the plus sign next to Engineering & Technology. 
7. Scroll down this shorter list of files and check the boxes for Inspec, Ei Compendex and NTIS.
8. Click Save.
9. Click Search.
10. Click Databases
11. Choose My shortcuts on the top bar. 
12. Click your shortcut name.

You then will see in the navigator line that you are searching three databases. You are ready to search your own group of engineering databases. Enter a search query such as magnetic resonance imaging AND brain, and you are on your way to finding excellent, concrete data on this topic.

April Highlights

Succeed in today’s business world with The Economist

With information on world politics, business, finance, science, technology, and the arts, The Economist provides many articles senior management from all types of businesses need to succeed in today's quickly changing marketplace. Updated weekly with full-text articles, the database covers from 2004 to the present and is provided by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The Economist can be found in File 622 on legacy Dialog, in Gale Group PROMT^® on ProQuest Dialog, and AB I/INFORM on legacy Dialog.

International geographic coverage includes Asia/Pacific news, business economics, European regional business news, government, general industry information and much more. Always attuned to changes in the global economy, The Economist has created a new section on China, so the world can continue to monitor China’s rise in the marketplace. The database also provides country analysis, including forecast data and risk data, such as operational, credit and foreign trade and payment and industry information.

In each issue: sections on the world for the week, leaders, business, finance and economics, science and technology, books and arts, and economic and financial indicators on countries throughout the world.

Every two weeks: in-depth special report on a particular issue, business sector or geographical region.

Every three months: technology report, focusing on recent trends and developments in science and technology.

This sampling of article titles reflects the wide variety of topics offered in the database:

• E-Commerce: Bricks Online
• Vodafone: Not-so-big is Beautiful
• The Car Industry: Driving into Traffic
• Corporate Mergers: The Gasman Cometh
• The Politics of National Security
• Reinventing the Internet
• Wi-Pie in the Sky
• Turning Wind Power on its Side
• Battling for Corporate America
• Nuclear Fusion
• Conservation: Saving the ends of the Earth
• Nuclear Diplomacy and Iran

Note: Other EIU sources include EIU: ViewsWire (File 620), EIU: Country Analysis (File 627), EIU: Market Research (File 768), and EIU: Country Risk and Forecasts (File 628).

Learn more about this Featured File of the Month in the Overview of The Economist.

YouTube videos offer a quick training fix

Ready for a coffee break? While you’re sipping that cup of java, take a glance at the new 2-3-minute YouTube videos, highlighting features of ProQuest Dialog. For example, one video illustrates Basic Search, including becoming familiar with the search interface, selecting databases and entering search terms. Others provide snippets explaining how to use features, such as date limiters, the translation tool and Basic Search. Did you read about the new database shortcut feature earlier in this issue? Now watch the video!

Content videos on YouTube highlight specific databases, such as GeoRef and The Economist in Gale Group PROMT^®, from Dialog’s comprehensive collection.

Do you have a suggestion for a video topic? us your ideas!

Be sure to bookmark the YouTube site, and check back often for new videos featuring content and the latest new ProQuest Dialog features.

Discover: Scitech Content Updates

New Emtree thesaurus available for Embase files on legacy Dialog

The 2012 version of the EMTREE thesaurus on Embase^® replaces the 2011 version. A list of terms added to the Emtree 2012 thesaurus is available for download.

Validate: Intellectual Property Content Updates

Make the most of your resources

Despite the economic downturn worldwide, companies must still innovate to stay ahead of their competition and do it with fewer resources. The Jan/Feb 2012 issue of World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR) features an article titled, “Open Innovation Strategies: Homing in on Opportunities,” written by Ian Pearce, Dialog Training & Applications. Ian explores the topic of open innovation as a possible way to meet this challenge using three resources: Innography, ProQuest and Dialog.

The research

• Ian starts his research in Innography, a unique IP business intelligence search and analysis tool. With Innography, he examines technology landscapes by portfolio strength and size and creates visualizations of competitive landscapes by portfolio size and company resources.

A simple free-text search in Innography produced an active technology landscape from which he identified a potentially interesting venture capital-backed company whose “strongest” asset led him to similar technologies. Ian then identified academic institutions with similar interests and inventors as potential partners.

• Next, using ProQuest’s COS Scholar Universe, a database containing comprehensive profiles of authors, researchers and other scholars from around the world, he was able to research papers of the expert identified in more detail as well as identify co-workers and colleagues.

• Finally, Ian finished his research with Dialog. With its unparalleled breadth and depth of patent and non-patent information in science, technology, news and business, he searched for additional prior art and company information. Finding the inventor he had been researching, he was also able to locate additional scientists working in the same area of technology for his network.

Completing his work, Ian has identified external R&D without originating the research, and he now may be able to profit from this research by partnering or buying it. He also has uncovered experts and companies working on the same technology, who he may add to his network.

Read Ian’s article to learn how Dialog and ProQuest sources can help your organization in the innovative process. Watch for his next article in the WIPR Mar/Apr issue. Ian’s article will focus on monitoring green technologies in patent and scientific literature. 

Market: Business and News Content Updates

Get comprehensive research with ProQuest's family of brands

As world influential leaders in countries, including the United States, France, China, Mexico and others, face national elections, the political landscape may change drastically. The global economic situation, tenuous at best, may also be affected. Business and news content becomes more important than ever.

To illustrate just what we mean, we’ll focus on a quick view of economic conditions and reform in China to highlight the comprehensive information you can get from ProQuest’s family of brands.

ProQuest Dialog. Find China’s new growth targets, as well as an article on how China is trying to satisfy its people who face high prices and slowing growth--all in Gale Group PROMT^®, a comprehensive business database. The Economist (US) and other journals, such as China Chemical Reporter and Asian Economic News, focus on China economics.

• Legacy Dialog business economics databases. Dialog OneSearch^® categories such as BUSECON, let you narrow your search immediately to files, including Gale Group Trade & Industry Database™, Business & Industry, Gale Group Newsletter Database, Dialog Global Reporter, ABI/INFORM, The Economist and other EIU files. A search reveals articles on fears over China’s growth in 2012 and whether a hard or soft landing will take place. See also “The importance of understanding China in the June 2009 Chronolog for more sources on China in legacy Dialog.
• ebrary. A quick search on a few keywords provides a list of books with Tables of Contents on topics, such as contrasting development between Shanghai and Beijing or “From Mao to Market: China Reconfigured” and “Reforming China: International Comparisons and Reference.” And, by clicking a link, you can find similar titles.
• ABI/INFORM Complete™. Using this comprehensive ProQuest business database, containing more than 6,800 journals, 80% in full text, you can respond to changing market conditions and prepare for emerging areas of interest. Such scholarly journals as The Asia Pacific Journal of Economics & Business, The China Economic Journal, The China Quarterly, and trade publications like China Economic Review provide information on China’s economy.
• Professional ProQuest Central. A central resource for researchers at all levels, this full-text database totals more than 13,440 titles (with over 10,390 titles in full text) and contains titles including Country Industry Forecast — China, China Business Newsweekly and China Economic Review. In addition, you might try some of the more than 9,000 market reports across 43 industries in 40 countries, spanning the globe.

This sample just scratches the surface of the broad and deep authoritative resources that keep you connected to what's happening in the global business arena in the world's most populated country — China. Take a few minutes and explore resources available to you through the ProQuest and Dialog family of databases.

Learn about ProQuest

Summon service from Serials Solutions^® continues mission to return researchers to the library

Your library, with a single starting point

End users can be bewildered by the range of different journal article services and databases offered by the library…they’d like to find it all in one virtual catalog instead of going to multiple interfaces to search. The Serials Solutions^® Summon^® service provides that easy and fast access to the full breadth of an organization’s library content.

The Summon™ web-scale discovery service enables a familiar web-searching experience of the full breadth of content found in library collections — from books and videos to e-resources such as articles. It goes beyond federated search and, beyond next-generation catalogs to create an all-new service for libraries.

Through one simple search to a single unified index, the Summon service provides instant access to the breadth of authoritative content that is the hallmark of great libraries. No need to broadcast searches to other databases — it provides one search box for a researcher to enter any terms he or she wants and to quickly retrieve credible results in one relevancy-ranked list.

Librarians like the service’s power to transform their institution’s search experience, and have found it easy to set up and integrate into their current library operations.

Serials Solutions is the global leader in essential discovery and e-resource management solutions, which are powered by a comprehensive knowledgebase. Its popular suite of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions helps improve access to and use of collections, eases librarian workloads, and ultimately reduces operating costs. Find out more about Serials Solutions Summon service.