Jinfo: Newsletter No. 1

Newsletter No. 1

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                              Free Pint
            'The Internet Newsletter That Means Business'

ISSN 1460-7239                                     6 November 1997 #1
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              Welcome to the first issue of Free Pint!

This free email newsletter is written by information professionals,
and is available to anyone in any business or organisation who uses
the Internet to find information. It is best viewed using a fixed
width font like Courier and is formatted to 70 characters wide.
We also recommend that you print it out first as this makes it much
easier to read.

If you find this newsletter useful then please forward it (in its
entirety) to anyone you think may also benefit from reading it. This
extra support will mean that Free Pint can remain first-rate and free. 

Thank you for your support,
William Hann
Editor

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                           IN THIS ISSUE

                        TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
                    'Back to Searching Basics'

                          FEATURE ARTICLE
      'Major Sources of Business Information on the Internet'

                       QUESTIONS AND LETTERS

                          ADVERTISER INDEX
                  Dow Jones Interactive Publishing
                        The Investext Group
                    Information Access Company
                               TFPL
                    Hemmington Scott Publishing
                      RBA Information Services
                    Financial Times Information

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DOW JONES INTERACTIVE PUBLISHING http://djinteractive.com provides fast,
easy and timely access to 3800 reliable and authoritative business
publications, including exclusive coverage of The Wall Street Journal and
Dow Jones newswires; plus a vast collection of market and broker research,
company financials and share price histories. Research a market sector
like telecommunications, energy or healthcare, a specific country or
geographic area, the emerging markets, a company, personality or topical
issue. Email solutions@dowjones.co.uk for your free trial.

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         GLOBAL BUSINESS RESEARCH FROM THE INVESTEXT GROUP
      ****VISIT US ON STAND 167 AT ONLINE INFORMATION 97****
The Investext Group offers the largest electronic collection of
investment research, market intelligence and trade association
information worldwide.  Our Investext, MarkIntel, Pipeline(sm) and
Industry Insider databases provide access to over a million research
reports from over 500 investment firms, brokerage houses, market
research organisations and trade associations worldwide. Access our
data collections directly online, on CD-ROM or via the Internet.

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                        TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

                    'Back to Searching Basics'
                          by William Hann

Search engines on the Internet are becoming increasingly important
and relevant when talking about finding reliable, good quality
information on the Web. Free Pint will be looking at a variety
of search engines in more detail over the coming issues, and Karen
gives pointers to some of the major ones later in the Feature
Article.

Although search engines are widely used on the Internet, most users
have not had any specific information training. If you are a
librarian or an information professional then it is highly likely
that you will have had some kind of formal training in how to search
for information, and have some knowledge of the inconsistencies
therein.  If you are not, then it is likely that you have never
needed to worry about the inherent problems associated with
'information'.  Since so many people now use search engines to search
the Web, I thought it would be useful to re-introduce five of the key
issues in Free Pint's first tips and techniques section.

1. What we say rather than what we mean

Any information professional will tell you that someone searching for
information will generally skirt around the issue and not say
precisely what they want. This may be because the searcher says they
will "know it when I see it", or because they find it difficult to
put their request directly into words. When you use a search engine
on the Internet however, you are asked directly to enter your search
terms - words for which the engine will search. It is worth bearing
in mind therefore that what the search engine is really saying is:
"I will display a link to a Web page if that page contains the words
you enter". This is often forgotten and it is expected that search
engines can translate the words we enter into what we really mean,
which of course they cannot.

2. Search for concepts

It is vital to think about the concepts or subjects relating to what
you want to retrieve. You then have to find words which represent
these subjects - these are your 'search terms' or 'keywords'. You may
think you already know these before going ahead, but even information
professionals who use information systems daily still often plan out
a search on paper before connecting to an online system. This allows
them to concentrate on the most important concepts of their search
without the added stress of wasting time or money. Of course the
professional systems they use are expensive, but likewise if you
spend a long time searching on the Web then you must remember
that _your_ time is money.

3. Synonyms

What you must also think about are other words which mean the same
thing as your first search terms. These synonyms are very
important - the person who created the web site that you are looking
for has probably chosen different words to describe its content than
you would have done were you doing their job.  Therefore you need to
second-guess what words that other person will have used to describe
their site.

4. Subconscious knowledge

Another problem is subconscious knowledge - that which we don't know
we already know. For example, let's say I am looking for details
about the Halifax on the Web. Most people in the UK would know that I
am talking about the company which has recently converted to PLC
status - they know this because it has been in the news recently.
However, a search engine doesn't have this extra information, and so
if you simply searched for the word 'Halifax' then you may also get
information about the towns in Nova Scotia and West Yorkshire.
Therefore, bear in mind the subconscious knowledge you already have
when deciding on your search terms.

5. What you want ... and what you don't

As a result, you must not only think about what you _do_ want, but
also what you _don't_ want. This can often cause problems if, for
instance, you decide to use a facility which a lot of search
engines offer; namely the ability to tell the engine that you don't
want to see links to sites which contain a particular word or phrase.
This is done by placing a minus sign in front of those words (more
details and examples will appear in subsequent issues of Free Pint).
The 'Halifax' example above highlights the potential problem: if you
were to tell the search engine that you didn't want links to
documents containing the phrase 'West Yorkshire', then you would have
made things ten times worse because that is actually where the
Halifax's headquarters are located. As a result, the search engine
could well have removed the correct Web site from the list of
results.

In summary therefore, you can save a lot of time searching if,
before you connect to the Web, you concentrate on exactly what it is
that you really want. Then identify suitable search terms and
synonyms, think about the sub-conscious knowledge you already have
about the subject, and also give some thought to what it is that you
_don't_ want.

William Hann

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William is a qualified Information Scientist who has worked for a
number of online information service providers, including the
Financial Times, Knight-Ridder Information and News International.
He runs the Internet consultancy Willco (http://www.willco.co.uk),
and is the editor of Free Pint. He can be contacted by email to
w.hann@freepint.co.uk

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If you have any questions, suggestions or letters, then please send
them to letters@freepint.co.uk along with your full name and email
address.

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INFORMATION ACCESS COMPANY:(www.international.iacnet.com) PRESENTS
INSITE PRO, a powerful flat-fee business intelligence solution on the
web designed especially for information professionals. INSITE PRO
offers access to the most trusted databases in the information
industry including PROMT. Providing fast and flexible search options,
a single annual subscription fee and easy navigation, you can enjoy
unlimited access regardless of how many searches you request or how
many articles you download. Further information: iacinfo@iacnet.com 

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          TRAINING COURSES FOR THE INFORMATION PROFESSION
TFPL, the premier training organisation in business information,
presents the following courses:
    Competitor Intelligence                - 19th November 1997
    Researching Global Company Information - 27th November 1997
    Internet for Market Research           - 28th November 1997
For further details please contact sarah.sheldon@tfpl.com
or visit our website http://www.tfpl.com/

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If you would like to advertise in Free Pint, please see the notes
and special offers at http://www.freepint.co.uk/

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                          FEATURE ARTICLE

      'Major Sources of Business Information on the Internet'
                         by Karen Blakeman

If, a couple of  years ago, you mentioned the Internet as a source of
free business information you would be greeted with howls of
hysterical laughter followed by "You CANNOT be serious?".  Today, the
story is very different. In fact many of us now use the Web as our
first port of call.  That is not to say that everything is hunky-dory
on the Net. There remain sites that offer incomplete, out of date and
highly suspect information so you have to keep your wits about you.
And then there is the problem of finding them in the first place!
Search engines can get you there eventually, but it does help to have
the addresses of some key sites to hand.

What I have brought together here is a small, unashamedly UK biased
selection from my own personal list of favourites. I have concentrated
on free sites but mentioned a few worth-while priced services.

Disclaimer: The following addresses were valid at the time of writing,
but they could change at any time.  Neither can I guarantee the
accuracy, reliability or quality of the information that you may find:
things change very quickly on the Net as does the content of Web pages
- and not always for the better.

Gateways
--------

Gateways are collections of links to other sites, usually covering a
specific subject area or geographical region.

RBA Information Services: Business Sources
(http://www.rba.co.uk/categories.htm)
My own company's collection of business sources on the Net.

Yahoo - Business and Economy Section
(http://www.yahoo.co.uk/Business_and_Economy/)
An Internet search tool and directory and a good starting point for
any subject.

EMIC Information for Exporters
(http://dtiinfo1.dti.gov.uk/OTS/EMIC/WEBPAGES/www.html)


Company financials and share prices
-----------------------------------

Many business people use the Net for share prices and company
financials. Free share prices are delayed by at least 20 minutes, but
you can obtain real-time prices at relatively low subscription rates.

For a list of  links to stock exchanges across the world try
Qualisteam on http://www.qualisteam.com/eng/act.html, or the
Financial Times on http://www.ft.com/ The FT also gives 20 minute
delayed stock prices for UK listed companies plus some brief
financials.

One of the most popular services is Hemmington Scott
(http://www.hemscott.co.uk/hemscott/) which covers UK listed
companies.

DataStream (http://www.datastream.com/) now gives free end of day
quotes for 32,000 equities world-wide.  More information plus share
price graphs can be found on the related Market Eye pages
(http://www.market-eye.co.uk/).

If you are looking for reliable UK company accounts data, and you need
it yesterday, go straight to ICC (http://www.icc.co.uk/).  This is a
priced service but you can be sure that if the company has a legal
obligation to present accounts to Companies House, it will be in the
ICC database.

For US stock exchange listed companies, you can find two years of
accounts on EDGAR (http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm). For share prices
try PC Quote (http://www.pcquote.com/)or QuoteCom
(http://www.quote.com/)


News
----

Virtually every major newspaper and magazine has a web site of some
sort. Many of them are marketing sites and have only a couple of top
stories from the current issue. Few provide the whole issue online,
and even fewer have a searchable archive. Newslink
(http://www.newslink.org/news.html) and News Resources
(http://newo.com/news/) have links into the majority of news services.
 
Internet newspapers can be a great way of keeping up with the latest
events in other countries, but the downside is that they are often in
the original language of publication. So brush up your French, German,
Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese........

Some UK papers worth reading online for free:

Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)
Has almost everything that appears in print, including Alex and the
crossword!

London Evening Standard (http://www.standard.co.uk/)
Five day archive and all 4 editions for each day

The Times and Sunday Times (http://www.the-times.co.uk/)
Nearly all the articles of the hard copy since January 1996.

Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/)
Articles from the most current issue plus the latest Independent on
Sunday.


Directories
-----------

Some directories on the Web are designed to be part of a marketing
site for a printed directory or subscription based service, so do
check coverage and currency. If you are looking for telephone
directories try Worldpages (http://www.worldpages.com/global.html) or
Telephone Directories on the Web (http://www.contractjobs.com/tel/).

For UK business listings you have a choice of three:

Scoot (http://www.scoot.co.uk/)

UK Electronic Yellow Pages (http://www.eyp.co.uk/)

Thomson Directories (http://www.inbusiness.co.uk/)

Conspicuous by its absence is BT's UK residential directory.  There
are two sites which claim to provide a UK White Pages but they are of
doubtful provenance and not to be recommended. (If you do come across
them, bear the words "pole, barge, touch, with, a, don't" in mind.)


Statistics
----------

The official national statistical offices are the obvious place to try
if you are looking for country specific statistics. The UK Office of
National Statistics (http://www.ons.gov.uk/) has a section called UK
in figures and links to other countries' official statistics pages.
Another good starting point is the Statistical Data Locators
(http://www.ntu.ac.sg/ntu/lib/statdata.htm)

That good old standby, the CIA World Factbook is available in full at
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/, as is the Handbook of Economic
Statistics. For the EU, the Eurostat Facts Through Figures is at
http://europa.eu.int/en/com/eurostat/serven/part2/21p2.htm.


Market Data
-----------

So you are looking for market information for widgets in Portugal?
Where better to look than the Web since most Market Research companies
have a home page. The results from your search engine may look good
but wait until you connect to the sites.  Then you find that they have
exactly the information you need but at a price :-(.  More often than
not, you will have to pay for reliable, up-to-date, detailed market
information.

One of the most respected providers of business information is IAC.
They have two Web versions of their databases: IAC InSite
(http://www.iac-insite.com/) and InSite Pro
(http://www.insitepro.com/). Both are well designed, quality sites:
the bad news is that you have to pay to use them. But if you are going
to be a heavy user of this type of information, it may be worth it and
you could save yourself days of fruitless searching.


Search Tools
------------

And Finally .... if you still haven't found what you need, it's time
to tackle the search engines.  Here are a handful to get you started:

Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.co.uk/) - particularly good for company web
sites

Metacrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com/) - combines searches from 6
other search tools

Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com/) - great search tool, shame about the
day-glo colours

Altavista (http://altavista.digital.com/) - very fast and one of the
most popular

Excite (http://www.excite.com/) - try the regional/country versions
for country specific information.

Good Hunting!

Karen Blakeman

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Karen Blakeman has worked in the information profession for 19 years
and has been a free-lance consultant with her own company (RBA
Information Services) for eight years.  She provides training and
consultancy on the use of the Internet to access and manage
information, and on sources of business information.  Karen is
Chairman of the UK Online User Group and writes the Internet column
for Business Information Searcher and EBRD Business Information
Review.  Her publications include Business Information on the
Internet, IT Strategies for Information Management,
Telecommunications and Information Work, and Food Information on the
Internet: a basic guide (joint publication with the Leatherhead
Food RA).

Tel/Fax: 0118 947 2256
E-Mail: Karen.Blakeman@rba.co.uk
Web: http://www.rba.co.uk/

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We welcome your feedback on any section in Free Pint.  Therefore,
please send your comments or suggestions to letters@freepint.co.uk
along with your full name and email address.

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          HEMMINGTON SCOTT PUBLISHING - www.hemscott.com
Is the leading provider to the professional and private investor
community of fundamental information on UK quoted companies.  The
company produces a number of publications, for example Company Guide.
In addition HSP distributes electronic data directly to City
Institutions and other data vendors for inclusion in their products.
The HSP product set is completed by a range of CD-Rom products and a
superb Internet site. Contact jsuckling@hemscott.co.uk

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                  INTERNET SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
RBA Information Services is running a series of seminars and workshops
on using the Internet:
   Internet Search Tools (half day workshop)          13th November
   Conventional Online Services Moving to the Web     18th November
   Business Information on the Internet               26th November
   How to make more effective use of the Internet     27th November
Full details from training@rba.co.uk or http://www.rba.co.uk/

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                       QUESTIONS AND LETTERS

In future issues, this section will contain questions, letters,
comments and feedback from you the reader.

If you have something you would like to say (whether it be good or
bad), then please send it to letters@freepint.co.uk including your
full name and email address.

Please note, letters may be edited for content or length, and we
cannot guarantee a reply.

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                    FINANCIAL TIMES INFORMATION
FT Profile - In-depth online service bringing together over 5,000
sources including newspapers, journals, newswires, trade publications,
industry and market research, company data, financial statistics,
trade tenders and more. FT Discovery - Web-based online service for
business end-users. News, politics, industry information, country
reports, business opportunities all available for a fixed monthly fee.
         Tel: +44 (0)171 825 7777 Fax: +44 (0)171 970 0420
        email: ftprofile@ft.com   web site: www.info.ft.com

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Thank you for reading the first issue of Free Pint. We hope you have
enjoyed it as much as we have enjoyed putting it together.

If you have found this newsletter useful, then please do tell at
least two other people or forward the entire newsletter to them.
If support increases in this way then we will know we are publishing
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Why not visit one of our sponsors?  Don't forget to tell them that
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Remember, if you would like any more information then please see our
Web site at http://www.freepint.co.uk/


                       See you in two weeks!

                       William Hann, Editor

(c) Willco 1997
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN: 1460-7239

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Free Pint (ISSN 1460-7239) is a free email newsletter for anyone who
uses the Internet to get information for their work in any business
or organisation. The newsletter is written by professionals who share 
how they find quality and reliable information on the Internet.

More details about subscribing, contributing or advertising can be
found on the Web at http://www.freepint.co.uk/

Please note: The newsletter is published by the information
consultancy Willco (http://www.willco.co.uk/), and the publishers
will NEVER make the subscriber list available to any other company
or organisation.

The opinions, advice, products and services offered herein are the
sole responsibility of the contributors. Whilst all reasonable care
has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the publication, the
publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.

This publication may be freely copied and/or distributed in its
entirety. However, individual sections MAY NOT be copied and/or
distributed without the prior written agreement of the publishers.
All rights reserved.

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