I agree absolutely with Stu on this one, and in fact raised it at the
Lille EPIDOS meeting. It is absolutely unacceptable to be faced with an
announcement that "coverage from country X has resumed" when you weren't
even aware that coverage had ceased. Furthermore, it is not adequate
for database producers to put out a single news flash when there are
problems, just at the beginning. Searchers are busy people and we need
reminding when there are ongoing problems ; yesterday's announcement of
a data "hole" may not register when we come to do that family search
next week. I notice that the Dialog rep. registered this, but all the
hosts should do likewise. The direct access version of INPADOC has a
CONtents command which provides detailed currency data broken down by
country - it is surely not beyond technical feasibility to get the same
information supplied to all the hosts, maybe also linked with a special
command. Obviously we don't want several screens-worth of online flash
whenever we go into the file, but there must be some way of making the
information easily accessible AND prompting the hurried user to check it
as well.
I recognise that it's not exactly good PR for the database producers to
go around trumpeting the incompleteness of their data, but I'd rather
they did it than have their customers searching in the dark. Failure to
provide comprehensive information to customers is tantamount to an
offence under the Trade Descriptions Act.
-- Stephen Adams Magister Ltd. - Patents Documentation Consultancy 62 Norton Road, Reading, RG1 3QJ, GB Tel/fax : +44 (0)118 926 7981 e-mail : stevea@magister.co.uk