Corrections or additions?
These articles by Bart Jackson and Kathleen McGinn Spring were
prepared for the April 3, 2002 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Tracking Through The Invisible Web
Signs can be difficult to interpret. Be they Delphic
smoke, trembling oak leaves, or the twitching runes upon a magnetic
web, they do not easily yield up their treasure to anyone who just
hollers for an answer. You need a pro — some priest(ess) who knows
how to seek out and interpret the gushes of mysterious verbiage.
A great and clever host of these informational wizards will convene
and reveal their Web wandering secrets at the spring conference of
the Pharmaceutical and Health Technology Division (PH&T) of the
Special
Libraries Association (SLA) on Monday and Tuesday, April 15 and 16,
at the Princeton Marriott. Cost: $250. Register at www.SLA.org.
The SLA is a professional organization for librarians who typically
direct the information collections of businesses, medical
institutions,
and law firms. Convention seminar topics include “Pipeline
Databases,”
“Competitive Intelligence,” and “Building a Workflow
Tool.”
Cynthia Hetherington, founder of Hetherington Information
Services,
speaks on “Information Discovery on the Invisible Web.”
Definitely the most invisible and underused research tool is one that
businesses and individuals have already paid for. You can phone or
E-mail your research question, and no matter how exhaustive, a team
of experts goes instantly to work, phones you back with the answer,
and will fax you whatever accompanying papers you desire. Whether
you seek only the total weight of the Pentagon, or an entire corporate
profile on a competitor, they can get it into your hands. After hours
in the Garden State, they provide the same service 24/7 via
Where labors this bought-and-paid-for team of information experts?
At your tax-funded public library.
Our skewed vision of the public library — as a place merely for
lonely spinsters to find romance novels — causes many information
seekers to overlook this powerful resource. Speaker Hetherington
herself
began as a public reference librarian for the Hawthorne, Teaneck,
and Englewood libraries. Despite advanced degrees from New Jersey
Institute of Technology, she claims “nothing was as valuable for
Web-searching work as my Rutgers MLS (Masters of Library Science)
degree. It gave me not just computer savvy, but organizational skills,
and a host of research hunting grounds.”
In 1996 IBM began to realize the potential of library science and
asked Hetherington to help establish what she calls “a very fancy
indexing process.” This first freelance assignment launched
Hetherington
into the private sector. Shortly after, she founded her own
Hetherington
Information Service, based in Elmwood Park (201-794-3075), which has
provided an astounding range of data for the criminal justice system,
the intelligence community, as well as the pharmaceutical and other
competitive industries. The calls come in over her website at
Can you find me a female jockey who is sympathetic to workers’ comp?
I need a printout on this railroad freight train — the contents
of every car. Does my new wonder drug have any competitors and will
its new name work in every country? Hetherington is every inch a free
agent whose knowledge of the Web’s invisible strands makes her a much
sought after wizard.
“Most people are just now beginning to learn that an invisible
sector of the Web actually exists,” says Hetherington. She defines
this invisible Web as “that whole unlisted collection of sites
that standard search engines, such as Yahoo and Google, never
see.”
It is such sites that have disproved the old maxim of “everything
is out there on the Web if you just surf long enough.” Businesses
have neither the costly in-house time nor the staff expertise to find
answers in this ever-broadening uncharted vale. To both tantalize
and test your web knowledge, Hetherington proffers these few sites.
Do you know how to reach these?
SEC.gov. Supposing you want to find out who truly runsa business, just how well he is running it, and exactly what he isgetting in compensation for this direction. The Edgar database ofthe SEC.gov site details every public document that every firmgrossingover $10 million annually must file. This includes quarterly andannualreports and a list of everyone in upper management with profiles andcompensation records. The tricky thing about the Edgar database isthat Google will lead you into a portion, but not all of the site.U.S. Patent and Trade Office database. Who else producesyour new medicine or software? In what regions and nations are theyselling it? Will your new trade name trip over that of your competitoror that of some unknown export firm located in Peru? Again, thegeneralsite is easily reached, but the full site remains mostly invisibleto most engines.Pac-Info.com This is a superwarehouse of state records.For example, every corporation must receive a charter in every statein which it transacts business. These charters can prove veryrevealing.In addition to the charters, every scrap of trade law and officialregulation for each state can be found on this site. Pac-Info linksonto Canadian and many foreign sites as well.Sonbiz.org. All Uniform Commercial Filings are listedhere. Every registered agent and full financial disclosure areavailablestate-by-state on this site.Specialized sites. Just to name a few, Cannanews.comprovidesall the political, sports, and business news of the Caribbean area,along with a deep archive. NCES.ed.gov/surveys/intl willlink you into the National Center for Education Statistics, whereyou can find out how well your son’s high school shapes up.Classynet.comopens of an entire Pandora’s box of nationwide classified ads.My wife and I have a saying in our house: “If you don’t see it,you don’t own it.” Truly, the World Wide Web has become amagnificentnew millennial oracle. But without the proper wizard to interpretthe message, you will wander through it as blind as poor old Oedipus.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageDonate PleaseSponsor a hole at the Links to Youth golf outing forthe Princeton-Blairstown Center, and you will send one childto camp. The outing is Tuesday, May 21, at 10:30 a.m. at Cherry ValleyCountry Club. Round up a foursome to play the Rees Jones-designedcourse and your fee of $1,500 pays for sending five kids to camp plusget a quarter page ad in the program. The individual golfer pays $250,which includes lunch, greens fees, golf cart, reception, buffetdinner,awards, and prizes. A business card ad in the program costs $75.The Princeton-Blairstown Center, established in 1908, is an outdoor,adventure-challenge experiential education center in northwest NewJersey. It operates year-round and during the summer hosts 400 at-risklow-income youth from social service agencies and schools. StevenWeintraub MD chairs this event; call 609-258-3340 for information.United Way of Greater Mercer County says it has suffereda $500,000 shortfall, has cut program funding by $283,000, and willhave to cut more if contributions don’t pick up. The agency, whosewebsite is www.uwgmc.org, says more funding decreases will affectprograms meeting basic and emergency needs in the community, includingfood, shelter, intervention programs, and supportive services forthe disabled, elderly, mentally ill, and at-risk youth.Donations can be made at the organization’s website. For moreinformation,call 609-637-4900.Top Of PageApply PleaseThe New Jersey Business/Industry/Science Education Consortiumand the Public Service Electric and Gas Company are sponsoringthe 10th annual Environmental Education Grant Program. The competitionis open to teachers of grades K-5 and 6-9 who teach in PSE&G’s servicearea. Teachers who can successfully link their students’ understandingof math, science, computer science, and/or technology concepts withan enthusiasm and appreciation for the environment are encouragedto apply.Applications that focus on the development of one of more classroomunits, the expansion of an existing course or curriculum, or theextensionof classroom work to community or after-school activities will beconsidered.The grants provide financial resources to carry out the project fortwo years. Grants are available in amounts of up to $3,500, and maybe used to purchase materials and equipment, take field trips, anddevelop innovative curriculum-related activities. Call 201-216-5635.Top Of PageCorporate AngelsThe Trenton Thunder has donated more than $1.8 million of itsintended goal — $2 million in donations to area charities. Forits “Grand Slam/We Care” fundraiser, the Double A affiliateof the Boston Red Sox has partnered with First Union National Bank,Johnson & Johnson, New Jersey Education Association, PrincetonUniversity,PSE&G, Merlino’s Waterfront Restaurant, and Wawa.New this season is the “Minding Our Business Market Fair Days”co-sponsored by Merrill Lynch and Rider University. Rider Universityprovides seed money for Trenton middle school students to start andrun their own businesses, and the baseball team runs a series of tradeshows to help the students understand business concepts. Forinformationcall 609-394-3300.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
