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."
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?
a business, just how well he is running it, and exactly what he is
getting in compensation for this direction. The Edgar database of
the SEC.gov site details every public document that every firm
grossing
over $10 million annually must file. This includes quarterly and
annual
reports and a list of everyone in upper management with profiles and
compensation records. The tricky thing about the Edgar database is
that Google will lead you into a portion, but not all of the site.
your new medicine or software? In what regions and nations are they
selling it? Will your new trade name trip over that of your competitor
or that of some unknown export firm located in Peru? Again, the
general
site is easily reached, but the full site remains mostly invisible
to most engines.
For example, every corporation must receive a charter in every state
in which it transacts business. These charters can prove very
revealing.
In addition to the charters, every scrap of trade law and official
regulation for each state can be found on this site. Pac-Info links
onto Canadian and many foreign sites as well.
here. Every registered agent and full financial disclosure are
available
state-by-state on this site.
provides
all the political, sports, and business news of the Caribbean area,
along with a deep archive. NCES.ed.gov/surveys/intl will
link you into the National Center for Education Statistics, where
you can find out how well your son’s high school shapes up.
Classynet.com
opens 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 a
magnificent
new millennial oracle. But without the proper wizard to interpret
the message, you will wander through it as blind as poor old Oedipus.
— Bart Jackson
Top Of Page
Donate Please
Sponsor a hole at the Links to Youth golf outing for
the
to camp. The outing is Tuesday, May 21, at 10:30 a.m. at Cherry Valley
Country Club. Round up a foursome to play the Rees Jones-designed
course and your fee of $1,500 pays for sending five kids to camp plus
get a quarter page ad in the program. The individual golfer pays $250,
which includes lunch, greens fees, golf cart, reception, buffet
dinner,
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 New
Jersey. It operates year-round and during the summer hosts 400 at-risk
low-income youth from social service agencies and schools. Steven
Weintraub MD chairs this event; call 609-258-3340 for information.
a $500,000 shortfall, has cut program funding by $283,000, and will
have to cut more if contributions don’t pick up. The agency, whose
website is www.uwgmc.org, says more funding decreases will affect
programs meeting basic and emergency needs in the community, including
food, shelter, intervention programs, and supportive services for
the disabled, elderly, mentally ill, and at-risk youth.
Donations can be made at the organization’s website. For more
information,
call 609-637-4900.
Top Of Page
Apply Please
and the Public Service Electric and Gas Company are sponsoring
the 10th annual Environmental Education Grant Program. The competition
is open to teachers of grades K-5 and 6-9 who teach in PSE&G’s service
area. Teachers who can successfully link their students’ understanding
of math, science, computer science, and/or technology concepts with
an enthusiasm and appreciation for the environment are encouraged
to apply.
Applications that focus on the development of one of more classroom
units, the expansion of an existing course or curriculum, or the
extension
of classroom work to community or after-school activities will be
considered.
The grants provide financial resources to carry out the project for
two years. Grants are available in amounts of up to $3,500, and may
be used to purchase materials and equipment, take field trips, and
develop innovative curriculum-related activities. Call 201-216-5635.
Top Of Page
Corporate Angels
The
intended goal — $2 million in donations to area charities. For
its "Grand Slam/We Care" fundraiser, the Double A affiliate
of the Boston Red Sox has partnered with First Union National Bank,
Johnson & Johnson, New Jersey Education Association, Princeton
University,
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 University
provides seed money for Trenton middle school students to start and
run their own businesses, and the baseball team runs a series of trade
shows to help the students understand business concepts. For
information
call 609-394-3300.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
Facebook Comments