Press Release

...provided as a service to help VIVA institutions publicize VIVA resources and services on their local campuses

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New One-Stop Search Engine from Gale

VIVA
The Virtual Library of Virginia
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: Fairfax, Virginia 9/20/2001

Gale Group Adds Mega database to Popular InfoTrac Resources

Whether it’s journal essays, magazine articles, company profiles, medical data, business information, software announcements, or book reviews, students and faculty of the Commonwealth's publicly supported academic institutions can probably find it in one or more of the Gale Group's dozen InfoTrac databases.

But as Gale's topical databases continue to proliferate, the content material in each becomes less subject specific. Users desiring articles on a broad topic have often had to consult several indexes and have wondered, "Isn't there something that will provide 'one-stop' article searching of all of these databases?"

The appropriately named search engine OneFile does just that. This mega database, which is updated daily, provides access to the articles in all the InfoTrac databases. With 20,000,000 records (as of mid-2001) from over 6,000 titles, OneFile covers news and periodical information on dozens of topics: from current events to twenty-year-old news stories, from hobbies to health care, from sports to computers and technology, from general interest to the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and every subject in academia.

Users will, however, still have to consult individual indexes for non-article information. A search, for example, in the Gale Group's Health Reference Center-Academic database under Parkinson's disease turns up not only articles, but also a bibliographic "reading list" from the Harvard Mental Health Letter that a researcher will not find by using OneFile.

Besides offering a new database, Gale also provides new features for all its InfoTrac resources. One is the InfoMark. If the InfoMark icon (a lower-case letter I in a circle) appears at the top of a page, then the URL of the page stays valid even when the InfoTrac session is over. These stable URLs can be

InfoMarks and other characteristics of OneFile are explained in the familiar "help" pages that are readily accessible in each of the Gale Group's databases.

VIVA, The Virtual Library of Virginia, is the consortium of the libraries of the 39 state-assisted colleges and universities (at 52 campuses) within the Commonwealth of Virginia. In addition, 32 independent (private, non-profit) institutions and The Library of Virginia participate where possible. VIVA's mission is to provide, in an equitable, co-operative, and cost-effective manner, enhanced access to library and information resources for Virginia's non-profit academic libraries serving the higher education community. VIVA is sponsored by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV).

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