Subject: Free Pint No.34 - Pharmaceutical sources and Access Control Free Pint "Helping 20,000 people use the Web for their work" http://www.freepint.co.uk/ ISSN 1460-7239 18th March 1999 #34 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = IN THIS ISSUE EDITORIAL TIPS AND TECHNIQUES "Pharmaceutical/ health information on the Web" By Sophie Graham FEATURE ARTICLE "Who goes there...? - Access Control Issues for Internet-based information services" By Jonathan Eaton FREE PINT FEEDBACK "Analysing Web hits (Free Pint #33)" "Becoming a researcher (Free Pint #32)" "Accolade for the MSN site" "Adding my thanks to the chorus" CONTACT INFORMATION ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/180399.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = *** YOUR CHANCE TO WIN FLIGHTS TO SAN FRANCISCO!! *** Register FREE for Silicon.com (http://www.silicon.com) this week and you'll automatically be entered into our prize draw to win a pair of return flights to San Francisco in association with Lastminute.com (http://www.lastminute.com) Silicon.com is the first online TV network featuring interviews with leading industry figures, debates and first class analysis. It costs nothing - so access FREE today at http://www.silicon.com > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [nm341] EDITORIAL Many thanks indeed to all readers who have been spreading the word about Free Pint to colleagues, discussion lists and publications. We are thrilled to be able to announce that we now have 20,000 subscribers in 117 countries around the world! This issue brings you a great article about where to find pharmaceutical and health related information on the Web. This is followed by an in-depth look at ways information providers can control access to Web sites. In the feedback section we have reproduced some of the many responses we received to the letter in the last issue asking about ways to analyse your Web site hits to learn more about your visitors. We have also been busy making it really easy for you to tell other people about Free Pint: we have set up a special form on the Web site where you can enter your colleague's email address and we'll send them a courteous note about the newsletter. Why not check it out today at: http://www.freepint.co.uk/reco.htm Hope you enjoy your thirty fourth Free Pint! Kind regards, William William Hann BSc MIInfSc, Managing Editor e: william@freepint.co.uk t: +44 (0)1784 455435 f: +44 (0)1784 455436 PS: To see all previous issues of Free Pint, visit the Web site at http://www.freepint.co.uk/ You will also find the 1998 index there with easy access to all last year's articles and feedback subjects. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = TELEWORKING DIRECTORY A new book from the British Library guides you through the growing range of information about this new way of organising work. The directory lists books and journals, internet resources, and organisations. It will benefit teleworkers, employment advisory bodies and librarians. Price 29 pounds (UK postage included). For information tel:+44(0)171 412 7471, orders tel:+44(0)1462 672555 ISBN 0-7123-0851-2 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [bl342] >>> Does advertising in Free Pint work? <<< Advertisers like the British Library and Learned Information (organisers of the Online Information conference/exhibition) seem to think so: between them they have placed adverts in every forthcoming issue in 1999 Advertising details at http://www.freepint.co.uk/advert.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = QUICK TIP ... INTERNET CONSULTANCY If you have a large Web site where the same details are re-used on many pages (e.g. navigation headers or footers) then consider using Server Side Includes (SSIs). One change is automatically seen across the whole site. William Hann ~ http://www.willco.co.uk/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = TIPS AND TECHNIQUES "Pharmaceutical/ health information on the Web" By Sophie Graham This article will highlight some of the key pharmaceutical and health websites currently available on the Internet. Pharmaceutical information on the web is getting fairly extensive, if you know where to look, and as with most things on the Internet, this subject area is constantly growing and developing. For convenience, I have divided pharmaceutical and health information into the following categories: 1. General starting points 2. Pharmaceutical companies 3. Official health organisations 4. Health associations 5. Clinical trial information 6. Regulatory bodies I will be giving you a personal account of the main sites that I use on a regular basis to get pharmaceutical or health information. 1. General starting points What I call 'general starting points' tend to be predominantly large sites which encompass a wide range of news, views, links and sources. Three of my favourites are: * PharmWeb (http://www.pharmweb.net) * PharmInfoNet (http://www.pharminfo.com) * InPharm (http://www.inpharm.com) * PharmWeb is a structured pharmaceutical information server and provides a range of Internet services from web space, to conference programme lists, vacancies, mailing lists and training courses. The site also includes links to pharmaceutical companies, university pharmacy schools as well to information on specific diseases. The advantage of the site is that it is managed and operated by pharmacists and medical communications specialists. * PharmInfoNet (Pharmaceutical Information Network) is a fantastic resource for disease centres, drug information, medical meeting highlights, clinical trials information, and pharmaceutical links. It provides some excellent therapeutic information and covers asthma, cancer, cardiovascular, obesity and respiratory diseases. Its particular strength is its drug database where you can put in any generic or trade name and pull up information about the drug. * InPharm is more of an industry site and encompasses not only the pharmaceutical industry but also its allied services, such as medical education, advertising, PR, conference management, and even information management. The site provides a wealth of information ranging from industry viewpoints (The Lounge), to jobs (JobPharm), a directory of freelancers (M-Grapevine), a directory of web links (FlexiPages), shopping (ShopinPharm) and a mailing list (Exchange). The list of contacts is extensive and you can also subscribe to the monthly email update bulletin. 2. Pharmaceutical companies Nearly every pharmaceutical company now has at least one website: its corporate website and several other therapeutic disease websites that the company sponsors or has developed. It would be impossible to list and describe all the pharmaceutical companies that are currently on the Web, but there is a good site which provides a specific list of companies: http://www.cbc.med.umn.edu/~jhan/cp.html Although it is a personal webpage, the list is pretty comprehensive and you should be able to find almost any corporate company website you may need. InPharm (http://www.inpharm.com/inpharm_links/2.html) provides a set of links to the therapy specific sites, as do most of the corporate pharmaceutical websites themselves. Examples of therapy areas sponsored by corporate sites include Parkinson's Disease, Herpes, Allergy, Alzheimer's Disease, HIV, and Depression. The pharmaceutical industry also has trade associations which provide not only information on the industry but also links to member websites. The UK association, the ABPI (Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) (http://www.abpi.org.uk) does exactly this and also provides information on the industry. Many of the ABPI publications serve as core reference material for the industry and a full publication list is available on the website. To date, neither of the international equivalents of the ABPI (IFPMA, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association) or European (EFPIA, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries Association) have websites. 3. Official health organisations There is an ever increasing number of 'official health organisations' appearing on the web. 'Official health organisations' tend to be government sponsored or regulated. On a regular basis, three or four provide very good epidemiological information as well as official disease reports, treatment and clinical trial guidelines. My favourites include: * US National Institute of Health (http://www.nih.gov) * US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (http://www.cdc.gov) * World Health Organisation (WHO) (http://www.who.org) * UK National Health Service (NHS) (http://www.nhsconfed.net) * The US National Institute of Health website provides access to health information reports, news, events, scientific resources, funding and links to all the other organisations that make up the National Institute in the US, e.g. National Institute of Cancer. This site can provide you with good US statistics and epidemiological information. * The US CDC website provides a range of information covering travellers' health, statistics, publications, diseases in the news, and training. There are some very useful free health information sheets, which include statistics, covering a wide range of ailments and diseases. * The WHO website is the source for WHO documentation, reports and statistical information. It was also listed in Sue Welsh's 'The Best Medical Information on the Web' Free Pint #6. I would certainly recommend their library as an efficient and useful source of documentation. * The UK NHS Confederation Net provides good access to NHS publications, databases, conferences, press releases, and also commercial opportunities. Some of the noteworthy commercial opportunities available include advertising, sponsorship and conference services. 4. Health associations Health associations, be they patient, general practitioner or specialist focused, can provide you with a wealth of information on their disease area. Nearly all the general practitioner associations, such as the BMA (British Medical Association - http://www.bma.org.uk) and AMA (American Medical Association - http://www.ama-assn.org) have websites with lots of news, events, and other related information. Specialist websites for specific diseases like cancer, allergy or neurology also provide valuable information. Patient support groups like the NFP (National Parkinson Foundation http://www.parkinson.org/texthtms/tindex.htm) also provide specific patient focused information such as local support group addresses, news and information on the disease. When conducting a search for general information, I often use these 'health association' sites for preliminary data such as clinical guidelines and background information on the disease. The great thing about all these websites is they usually provide you with an extensive list of links. Indeed, especially useful are the lists of local association websites in other countries, for instance the World of Multiple Sclerosis (http://www.ifmss.org.uk) provides links to its associations in South Africa, France and Germany, to name but a few. There are, of course, many other sites targeting general physicians, such as Doctor's Guide (http://www.docguide.com) and NetMedicine (http://www.netmedicine.com), which tend to provide more general information, although Doctor's Guide is a good source of conference information for all types of disease areas. 5. Clinical trial information If you're looking for clinical trial or drug information then I would recommend starting with the following sites: * CenterWatch provides extensive US clinical trial information (http://www.centerwatch.com) from who's running the trial to how you can participate in a trial as a patient. It also provides information on new FDA approvals for products as well as news, information and research. * The Internet Drug Index (http://www.rxlist.com) is a prescription drug database, which provides good basic information about products on the market; you can search by keyword, brand or interaction. It's a useful site when you need basic information about a product. * The Virtual Drug Store (http://www.virtualdrugstore.com) also provides access to a drug database and links in relevant references about the drug which is especially useful. 6. Regulatory bodies By law, the pharmaceutical industry is very tightly regulated, I have therefore included a few pharmaceutical regulatory body websites. All of the following agencies tend to provide information on newly launched (predominantly prescription) products, drug safety monitoring, adverse reactions, regulations, and withdrawals. Most of the sites also provide reports and news on new pharmaceutical products. Some of the most notable ones in the UK are: * CSM (Committee for the Safety of Medicines) (http://www.open.gov.uk/mca/csmhome.htm) * MCA (Medicines Control Agency) (http://www.open.gov.uk/mca/mcahome.htm) Although Europe and the US have equivalent organisations, the main two with web presences are: * European EMEA (European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products) (http://www2.eudra.org) * US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) (http://www.fda.gov) Finally... I hope that I have given you an insight into the wealth of pharmaceutical information that is now out there and accessible to all. I realise that it is by no means an exhaustive or fully comprehensive list, but I do hope that it will be a worthwhile starting point for anyone working in or joining the pharmaceutical industry. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sophie Graham holds an honours degree in Biochemistry and a master's in Information Science. She has spent over two years as Information Manager at an international healthcare and pharmaceutical communications agency based in London, UK. Sophie is also a member of AIOPI, the Association for Information Officers in the Pharmaceutical Industry. For more information on AIOPI, please go to: http://www.aiopi.org.uk/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ARE YOU LOOKING FOR PRIVATE COMPANY INFORMATION FOR THE UK AND EUROPE? Try our user-driven solutions, FAME and AMADEUS - now available on CD-ROM and the Internet. All versions have full searching and analysis functionality. Call 0171 839 2266 or email marketing@bvd.co.uk for your free trial. http://www.bvd.co.uk/freepint for more information. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [bv343] >>> Visit the Free Pint Web site today <<< http://www.freepint.co.uk/ Past issues; 1998 index; advert and author details; press awards > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 2b UK Portal - Lottery Results By Email http://www.2b.co.uk/ 2b, the UK's leading UK Content site now offers the lottery results by email. You can sign up to receive the results by email on both or either Wednesday or Saturday. The 2b Lottery Zone also features the latest results and an archive of all the previous results. To sign up to the lottery results visit the 2b Lottery Zone at http://www.2b.co.uk/lottery/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [gg344] QUICK TIP ... INTERNET PUBLISHING If you publish an email newsletter with a large readership to a specific deadline then allow time for delivery of all those emails. e.g. one issue of Free Pint involves sending over 600MB of email! William Hann ~ http://www.willco.co.uk/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FEATURE ARTICLE "Who goes there...? - Access Control Issues for Internet-based information services" By Jonathan Eaton Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) and other access codes have invaded our lives. We now need usernames and passwords to access an ever-widening range of electronic interactive services, from personal telephone banking to individual "portal" pages on the Internet. Nobody would expect sensitive personal information to remain unsecured, but the ever-increasing range of commercial information content now provided on the Web means that each new information service we (or our organisations) subscribe to must impose some kind of access controls. Coping with multiple passwords has become a feature (or a curse?) of modern living, and nowhere more so with information services. Password proliferation is a big headache for all those involved, including service providers, information managers and users alike. Since the great majority of Internet transactions will involve no personal interaction, authentication - the process of establishing digital credentials in cyberspace - currently remains complex and fragmented. In this article we'll look briefly at the main shortcomings of mechanisms used to restrict access to information services, and discuss some of the currently available initiatives and technologies that offer some hope of improving matters in the long term. Password proliferation problems stem from the Internet's essentially open, global network infrastructure that lacks built-in security controls. With the browser phenomenon came an additional expectation of seamless access to resources, but this is unrealistic and impracticable where access to resources is available only under terms of a legal agreement, or where a service provider wishes to restrict access to previously registered users. Issuing a username and password to a few individuals for one or two services is normally manageable for customer, information provider and information manager alike. But multiply that by an ever-expanding user population and range of subscribed services, and it quickly becomes a huge administrative burden. Users get confused, and may consequently even avoid using access-controlled services. Librarians know all about this issue and its recent aggravation, as they typically license resources on behalf of their organisation, thus creating an indirect relationship between vendor, licensee and end-user. Higher education especially faces a huge problem - nobody wants to issue and maintain usernames and passwords to 10,000 university students and faculty, for example! How then, did we get into this mess in the first place? To understand password proliferation, we must accept that the password model is essentially a hangover from a now archaic computing era. It worked in the pre-PC age, when computers were large, centralised machines with relatively few users, confined within a single organisation. But now it simply cannot adapt to the modern world of globally interconnected networks. Usernames and passwords that log us in to an organisational network or your own ISP (Internet Service Provider) have no "global" validity: they propagate our identity or validate our access rights for various restricted information services as we traverse the Web and visit other organisations. The resulting need to distribute and manage many different types of username and passwords also results in poor security and fragmentation of access controls, so increasingly, a number of different techniques are used. "Cookies" (described in Free Pint #29, 7 January 1999) are sometimes used to "save" passwords the first time they are entered, removing the subsequent need to log in manually. But this convenience exposes security loopholes if the PC is shared, since subsequent users can unwittingly or deliberately "impersonate" the valid user just by requesting the URL with which that cookie is associated. Since passwords remain vulnerable to loss, theft, unauthorised transfer or even interception, controlling access by checking that the unique IP address of the workstation making the connection request is within a predefined range for that institution is an apparently simple and practical solution. Users' privacy is retained and maintenance is minimal. But this approach is inflexible: off-site access from a home PC using a commercial ISP will often be blocked if IP filtering is used, as many ISPs allocate IP addresses dynamically and they originate from a commercial domain, not that of their parent institution. Corporate "firewalls" that mask IP addresses for security can have a similar effect. Some organisations use "proxy servers" to get around the problem described above. This approach is essentially a displacement solution - it just pushes the problem elsewhere, since it will require users either to change their browser settings, or to log in to the proxy server to prove their status. In UK higher education, there is the ATHENS initiative (http://www.athens.ac.uk/), which aims to provide a single sign-on username and password approach to permit access to multiple resources. However, this requires each information vendor to comply technically with ATHENS' own proprietary technology. There is undeniably an urgent need for a better model that radically streamlines the entire access control process -- but what might it be like and how to achieve it? The first issue to address is that users and organisations are not simply lone "islands" but need to interact with each other, so we need to adopt an inter-organisational world view, and accept the consequent need for electronic credentials. Individuals derive access rights not only as individuals but also as members of different, often overlapping communities (as employees, students, etc). We need to provide generic as well as specific individual identities to preserve personal data privacy, yet must avoid "overkill" by ensuring that the authentication method is appropriate and cost-effective in relation to the resource in question. Any such system must work globally but be flexible enough to cope with local refinements. In recent years, support has grown for the idea of a "cyber-passport" or some kind of electronic wallet using strong encryption technology to provide a recognised digital identity acceptable to the widest variety of services one might wish to access. This facility now exists in the cryptographically secured digital certificate technology, supported by the international X.509 v3 standard. Organisations can become issuers or "Certification Authorities". If you use a recent version of the popular Web browsers you will find it already accepts them (Microsoft's Internet Explorer installs certificates for Microsoft itself, for example) - so a potentially huge installed user base already exists world-wide. Certificates can be made single or multi-purpose: they can not only provide passport-like credentials but also carry additional "attribute" information (such as status within an organisation; membership of a community) that can determine what kinds of resources or services the bearer may access. The certificate notion has much to recommend it, although it doesn't fully solve the familiar problems of loss or theft, browser installation complexities, and administrative overheads. What it will demand is precisely the sort of local, national and even international infrastructures that permit reciprocal or restricted access based on the key concept of trust relationships, which in turn raises large and complex issues. Which organisations would act as Certification Authorities? In the UK, would it be the Home Office - or the Post Office? A private company? Do we establish a "web of trust", in which issuers trust each other, or do we also have a hierarchical model in which a "root" body validates its associated members? Whatever the answers may ultimately be, there's little doubt that the old password model has outlived whatever usefulness it once had, and a far more flexible, appropriate and manageable solution must be sought urgently to suit our ever more interconnected networked world. Some Further Sources of Information The following select list of references may be of interest: For a clear and authoritative discussion of access control issues and technologies for networked information resources, see: Lynch, C. "A white paper of authentication and access management issues in cross-organisational use of networked information resources". Coalition for Networked Information, April 1998. http://www.cni.org/projects/authentication/authentication-wp.html A good discussion of Internet security shortcomings and potential solutions is found in: Garfinkel, S & Spafford, G. Web security and commerce. O'Reilly & Associates Inc., 1997. ISBN: 1565922697 For an example of a commercial digital certificate issuer, see the VeriSign Inc. web site at URL: http://www.verisign.com/ > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (The author writes in a personal capacity) Jonathan Eaton is Electronic Resources Manager at London Business School Library, responsible for a wide range of networked services, including bibliographic, full-text, historical and real-time financial databases. He has previously worked as an information broker for HERTIS Information & Research and for London Business School's Information Service. He is a member of the project team for the eLib Hybrid Libraries Phase III-funded Project HeadLine; speaks frequently on electronic information resources management issues, and also writes regular columns for "Managing Information" and "Information World Review". > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EMAIL LIST HOSTING "Want to run your own email newsletter or discussion list?" Trust the publishers of Free Pint to host your email list on their high speed servers. Full details at http://www.willco.co.uk/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [wi345] >>> Recommend Free Pint to a colleague <<< Why not forward this copy to them or let us do it by visiting http://www.freepint.co.uk/reco.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = QUICK TIP ... INTERNET TRAINING If making a presentation off-site, then take copies of your slides on TWO disks and FTP them into some spare Web space as well. This is a life saver when disks are corrupt, disk drives don't work ... William Hann ~ http://www.willco.co.uk/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT FEEDBACK Thank you for all your letters, feedback and questions. Keep them coming to . This issue's subject index: * Analysing Web hits (Free Pint #33) * Becoming a researcher (Free Pint #32) * Accolade for the MSN site * Adding my thanks to the chorus > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Analysing Web hits (Free Pint #33) From: Various Date: March 1999 In Free Pint #33, Rosalind Keir, Enquiries Coordinator at HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) asked ... "We are thinking of analysing the usage of our web site, and so are looking for a company or product that will monitor usage of the site. It should include number of hits, type of information retrieved, if they re-visit the web site, how they found it, etc. Thanks in advance." ... and here are some of the many useful replies ... "Rosalind should first check whether the host server holding their site will provide these figures as part of their site hosting package. The Association of Accounting Technicians' site (http://www.aat.co.uk) is hosted by an organisation called Exploit (http://www.exploit.com) and part of their hosting package includes access to a comprehensive set of statistics. Examples include number of hits for each individual page as well as the overall number of hits in total for the whole site, location of site visitors, browsers used to access the site, busiest time periods for page requests and so on. The only analysis software I am aware of, though there's doubtless more, is WebTrends (http://www.webtrends.com/) which offers similar information but produces presentation-quality reports. I have not used it so I cannot comment any further on it. To analyse individual pages, try The Counter (http://www.thecounter.com/). After registering, you are e-mailed HTML code to insert in your page. You are then e-mailed statistics for that page on a monthly basis or you can look at the detailed figures any time via a password-protected area on their site. You get a lot of information including browser type, type of operating system used, actual total of unique visitors and so on. The downside is that if your site has several pages, you need to register each page and remember the designated passwords. However, for individual page analysis, it's fine and, best of all, it's free!" Malcolm St Pierre, Marketing Information Assistant Association of Accounting Technicians http://www.aat.co.uk/ "This depends entirely on how your web site is hosted. If it is hosted via an ISP then you need to ask them about what services they provide for such analysis. If you have access or control the web server then you need to examine the logging options in your web server. All web servers (that I have come across) allow you to log various details for every page served to client browsers. This can cover simple items, such as the page, date and time, to more advanced items such as the referring URL and IP address. Most web servers come with some form of log file analyser. This is used to produce meaningful reports from the potentially very large list of data items held in the log file. A very good tool, and not just because it is free, is Analog, available from http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/analog/ Darren Green, Information Systems Analyst Gloucestershire Royal NHS trust "There ARE lots and lots of site trackers on the Internet, but I personally recommend this one. Hitbox at http://www.hitbox.com/ is an excellent tracker as it provides all the information that you want to know. For instance, the Loyalty Index tells you how many times they have visited you repeatedly or if this is their first visit. You can even view the statistics by day, month or even year." Leon 'Lazarus' http://www.moviem.com http://www.ageofkings.org "At Free Pint we run a Unix server and so have access to the four log files, namely access_log (which computer viewed which pages/images and when; and if the page was available), agent_log (which browser and operating system the user was using), error_log (list of pages/images that weren't available (error 404)), and referer_log (what page the visitor was looking at before yours - useful to find out search terms they used in search engines to find your site for instance). Depending on the number of visitors these files can run into many megabytes, and so you need a tool to analyse them. We run a couple of excellent CGI scripts (available from Darryl Burgdorf's site at http://awsd.com/) called "WebLog" and "RefLog". These produce really nice tables and pseudo bar charts showing you the number of hits and page views for a particular day, month, page, etc. The scripts are clever in that they try to work out if the hits are coming from the same user during one session. It is worth noting though that log files are not totally reliable and so don't rely on the information too much. It was from this, what I call, "management information" that I decided on the day to publish "Free Pint" ... Thursday was the day that most people visited my other sites and so was probably the day that they had most time to use the Web." William Hann, Managing Editor, Free Pint http://www.freepint.co.uk/ > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Becoming a researcher (Free Pint #32) From: Annabel Colley Information Researcher & Internet Trainer BBC Panorama Chair Elect AUKML Date: Wednesday 3rd March 1999 In Free Pint #32, Rik Kershaw-Moore asked: "For a while I have been thinking of changing my career and I would like to become a researcher. Unfortunately I have no real idea as to how to make this change. I was wondering if any of the other Free Pint subscribers could throw some light on things?" I have been contacted personally by a few people since my article on Computer assisted journalism (Free Pint #30) asking the same question. My advice to you is to decide what type of researcher you want to be. An Information professional? An academic researcher? A television/radio researcher? They all have very different backgrounds, approaches to information gathering and different ways of working. If you want to become an Internet researcher then you must realise that to be an effective information broker working perhaps as a freelancer for companies then you may not always be able to rely on the Internet alone but will need to become proficient in the use of commercial online databases and even good old printed sources. You could do an Information Management or Librarian course (post grad one year). People who are information brokers have very often trained as professional librarians and if you want more information contact EIRENE the European Information Brokers Network, they are at http://www.eirene.com/ If you follow http://www.batesinfo.com/speeches.html to Mary Ellen Bates' site, or http://www.marketingbase.com/bio3.html#SPEECHES to Amelia Kassel's, you can read what life is like for an information broker or independent researcher. TV or radio researchers are usually journalists on the first rung of the ladder. They may have started off in local papers, have excellent contacts, and strong powers of persuasion. My advice would be to do a course in journalism, or if you are very cheeky and persuasive it can be done without but it is a HIGHLY competitive area (but great fun). I do not have much experience of academic researchers but perhaps others can advise. Obviously it stems from an in depth knowledge of your given subject or postgraduate studies. The academic environment is a good one to exploit the Internet since they have always been ahead of the game using it for communication even before the World Wide Web was established. Hope this is helpful. There is a lot to becoming a researcher. Surfing the Internet and finding SOME information is not properly conducted research ... properly conducted research finds you the RIGHT information. Good luck, it is a great job." Annabel Colley > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Accolade for the MSN site From: Andrew Shuttleworth, Localisation Engineer SDL International http://www.sdlintl.com/ Date: Monday 1st March 1999 "Hi Freepinters For a couple of months now my browser homepage at work has been set to my personalised MSN page (http://www.msn.co.jp). I've found the (free) service provided to be excellent. Its UK content is extensive and well presented. Only today did I bother to look a bit deeper into how I could personalise it further and add to the sources for my homepage. I was impressed. Not only does the site cover every conceivable interest, but adding a section to one's personalised homepage couldn't be easier. If you choose not to have certain areas on your home page (I had to be careful not to add too many of the useful sources), it's easy to track down the resource elsewhere on the site. All aspects of the site, from signing up to navigation, are equally as easy to use, and I've not yet experienced major problems in terms of the download speed. Content includes news (national, international, business, finance, tech, sport) including briefs from (and organised links to) sources such as The Economist and The FT; travel; reference (English and multilingual dictionaries, directories); free fax sending; free mobile phone paging (Orange and Cellnet); competitions ,,,, the list goes on. Much of the best UK content you might have found spread out all over the web up to now is excellently organised into one place. The running costs of the site, I assume, are covered by advertising and links but these are at worst subtle, and much of the time useful. Having tried various other 'MyPortal' type sites and been disappointed by their limited organised resources, non UK content and often poor layout, I can confidently say that this is one of the best portal sites on the web - in my own opinion by far the best. There is very little more I could ask of from this site. If anyone else is suffering from 'MyPortal' depression, and in need of a good dose of personalised push technology, I recommend a visit here (or to the MSN site of your own country if available). I don't think you'll be disappointed. If anyone can recommend any other excellent UK content portal sites they've used, I'd be interested to hear about them." Andrew Shuttleworth > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Adding my thanks to the chorus From: Peter Chapman Date: Thursday 4th March 1999 "Just a note to say how much I appreciate Free Pint. You are doing a brilliant job in keeping us informed about real uses of the Web and in stimulating discussions." Peter Chapman, Head of Electronic Information Services Newsquest (NE) Ltd. http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk If you use the Web for your work then tell our readers about it. Write to me, Rex Cooke, Free Pint Editor, by email to . > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION, COMMENT OR REPLY? Let us know your feedback or favourite site by sending an email to the Free Pint team now to remembering to include your name, title and company or organisation. Please note, if you write to us we may publish your letter in whole or part for the interest of our subscribers unless you request otherwise at the time of writing. 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