First release of ProQuest Dialog
Jinfo Blog

By Penny Crossland

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Almost exactly two years to the day after acquiring Dialog from Thomson Reuters (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e7712 for details); Proquest has finally announced the first release of its new platform, which merges Dialog and Datastar content. What has taken so long? ProQuest itself has acknowledged that merging the massive content from both platforms has been attempted in the past, but that the challenge had proven too difficult. Now, with new technology it seems that ProQuest is getting there.

To be fair, merging content from 900 databases, representing 15 terabytes is a gargantuan task. The new platform is called ProQuest Dialog and is a welcome replacement for the confusing array of search systems available on the Dialog platform, such as Pro, Classic, Web, Select, SourceOne. ProQuest has spent the last two years talking to its customers and finding out what they were looking for in a new, merged product.

As explained in the presentation by Lynn Christie, Global Product Manager at Dialog (http://www.dialog.com/feature), feedback from customers revealed the wish for easier precision searching, the addition of features such as collaboration tools and presentation analysis and for keeping pay-as-you-go pricing.

The latter is particularly good news for self-employed information professionals. ProQuest Dialog will be released in three product development streams, starting with pharmaceutical and biomedical content now and to be followed by further STM content later this year. Databases such as CSA Illumina and Chadwyck-Healey products are included in this launch.

This is the 'discover' product development stream and caters to the Dialog power searchers. What ProQuest calls the 'validate' stream, consisting of legal and IP content will follow next, with the 'market' stream, aimed at users of business intelligence to be the last content group made available on the platform. ProQuest is obviously trying to keep its veteran customers happy first, before catering to non-professional searchers. ProQuest is also promising to include full-text content, a choice of interface languages, an automatic translation facility and analytical tools. The summer release of ProQuest Dialog can only support subscription models.

According to Christie, transactional pricing will be made available later in the year. Previews of further releases can be viewed after registering at http://userpanel.mydialogconnection.com. This is all exciting news for information professionals and further developments will no doubt be covered by VIP.

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