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Tales from the Terminal RoomFebruary 2002, Issue No. 29 |
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Please Note: This is an archive copy of the newsletter. The information and links that it contains are not updated.
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Tales from the Terminal Room ISSN 1467-338X February 2002, Issue No. 29 Editor: Karen Blakeman Published by: RBA Information Services Tales from the Terminal Room (TFTTR) is a monthly newsletter, with the exception of July and August, which are published as a single issue. TFTTR includes reviews and comparisons of information sources and search tools; updates to the RBA Web site Business Sources and other useful resources; dealing with technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications. In this issue:
Northern Light Web Searching Still AvailableThose of you who are regular users of Northern Light may have spotted that, despite the announcement made by Northern Light earlier this year, the free Web search service is still available on the nlresearch.com version of the site. On the default search screen, Power and Business Search forms there is a pull down menu from which you can select the World Wide Web as the collection to be searched. In its earlier announcement, Northern Light said that the Web search option would remain available to its subscription clients. Further enquiries about the continued general availability of the Web search facility resulted in a response from Northern Light saying that this site is going to become password access only in the near future, but that they will include a subscription alternative. I use the nlresearch.com Web search option when I want to sort my Web search results by date, for example if I need a chronology of events relating to a company, event or industry sector. On the default search screen you append sort:date to your search strategy; the search forms, such as Business and Power search, have a button that you can check to sort by date and time. The only other public, general-purpose Web search engine that I know of that sorts by date is Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com/): go to the Advanced Search screen and the option is towards the bottom of the screen. Update on KarnakKarnak (http://www.karnak.com/), which was reviewed in the October 2001 issue of TFTTR (http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2001/oct2001.htm), is offering new membership levels and "adjusting" prices on existing subscription plans. Topaz: this is a new "pay-as-you-go" membership with no monthly subscription fees. Research can be purchased by topic when needed. Prices start at USD 4.97 per topic. Academic: students can choose between one-quarter or one-semester long subscriptions. Professors, academic researchers and advanced degree students can have group memberships allowing private and shared collaborative research. Corporate/academic multi-user: supports up to 25 active and regularly updated research topics. Full results and summaries can be delivered by email with daily or weekly email updates on all topics. Sapphire, Ruby and Emerald level subscriptions will still be available but rates will be increasing. Further details of services and subscription rates can be found on www.karnak.com. Updates to the RBA Web SiteStatistics http:/www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm Nomis http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/ The datasets cover:
The data can be viewed in HTML form or downloaded in spreadsheet or ASCII text formats. It can be quite difficult to find the data you want as there are so many options and combinations of options, even if you are looking for data on one job title in just one town or county. If you need to get up to speed in the shortest possible time, Nomis run a two day training course. Workthing.com Support for SMEs http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/sme.htm Scavenger.net http://www.scavenger.net/ Miscellaneous Day to Day Essentials http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/misc.htm Under Property/Real Estate (UK) we have added three sites. Trends in the UK residential property market are regularly reported by the major mortgage lenders, notably the Nationwide Building Society (http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/) and The Halifax (http://www.hbosplc.com/view/housepriceindex/housepriceindex.asp). Both give an analysis of the market as a whole and for different areas of the country, as well as providing tables of average prices by region. On the Halifax site the analysis of prices is by region, type and the age of the property. The age of the property is broken down into pre 1919, 1919-45, 1946-60, post 1960 "not new" and "new". The types of property are terraced, semi-detached, detached, bungalow and flats. The Nationwide property prices pages use a different categorisation. The regions are different (I found myself in the Outer Metropolitan Area rather than the Halifax's South East region), age is relative age (new, modern, older), and the types are detached, semi-detached, terraced and flats. Both the Halifax and Nationwide have House Price Calculators that try to estimate how much your property is currently worth based on the original purchase price or a previous valuation. You type in your original purchase price or previous valuation, select the year and quarter for that valuation and then your region. As neither go into details of age of property, type, number of bedrooms, area etc the figure that they come up with can vary substantially from the actual current market price. For my own house, they both gave a value of around GBP 35,000 less than the current market value - an error of about 25 per cent! For more accurate prices of properties in England and Wales the Land Registry Property Prices Database (http://www.landreg.gov.uk/ppr/) is the place to go. This provides up to date average house prices broken down by region, unitary authority, local authority, and post code sector and then by detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat/maisonette. For each average price it gives the number of sales upon which the average is based. For the post code option it goes down to sector only, for example RG4 5, LU5 4. None of these sites take into account the number of bedrooms, general state of repair and features such as double glazing and central heating, all of which affect the price within a given area. For that level of detail, I'm afraid it is back to the good old fashioned hard copy local newspaper property supplements or looking in the Estate Agents' windows! But at least the Land Registry bases its data on actual selling price rather than the over-inflated asking prices that Estate Agents sometimes put on houses. Under the Biographies section we have added Who2 and Who Named It. Who2 http://www.who2.com/ For each famous figure, Who2 provides information in a standard format including date of birth and death, famous works and notorious trivia. There are also links to relevant Web sites where you can find more details about the person. Famous figures include classic authors, movie stars, famous frauds, kings and queens, mythical gods and cartoon characters. Coverage is International but with a definite US bias. I was pleased to see, though, that Winnie the Pooh is included - but no Tigger:-( In addition to individuals, groups of people such as The Three Stooges are included. You can browse by name or keyword search the site. Who named it? http://www.whonamedit.com/ You can browse by eponym, category or keyword search. Training and MeetingsWorkshop: Advanced Internet Search Strategies The aim of this workshop is to provide users of the Internet with the essential techniques needed to search the Internet more effectively. Topics covered will include:
A significant part of the day will be taken up with practical sessions; exercises will be provided but delegates are free to try out searches of their own. Course documentation includes a free copy of the latest edition of Search Strategies for the Internet, course notes and worked examples. Workshop: Business Information -Resource Management Strategies This workshop provides a step-by-step guide to setting up a central resource management strategy. It includes identifying patterns of usage within the organisation, how to select appropriate resources, managing and marketing those resources internally. TFTTR Contact InformationKaren Blakeman, RBA Information Services ArchivesTFTTR archives: http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/index.shtml Subscribe and UnsubscribeTo subscribe to the newsletter fill in the online registration form at http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml To unsubscribe, use the registration form at http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml and check the unsubscribe radio button. Privacy StatementSubscribers' details are used only to enable distribution of the newsletter Tales from the Terminal Room. The subscriber list is not used for any other purpose, nor will it be disclosed by RBA or made available in any form to any other individual, organisation or company.
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| This page was last updated on 4 March 2002 | 2002 |
