NTIS DOES NAICS

To the Editor:

Jan Davis Tudor's BusiNss CONNECTION column on NAILS ("Nearer to NAILS?" EContent, April-May 2000, pp. 68-72) provided a detailed background and clear examples of the SIC and NAILS industry crosswalks. However, I would like to add NTIS to her source list.

NTIS (httpJ/www.ntis.gov) not only distributes the printed version of the NAILS, but also created and distributes the CD-ROM. In fact, the figure on page 70 shows a screen from a page on our CD. You can order this online (http://www.ntis.gov/product/ naics.htm). NTIS has taken the initiative to create a number of CD-ROMs, such as the NAILS, using the electronic art also used to create the printed publications.

We are proud of the user interface we have developed that makes it easy for users to navigate our CD-ROMs. NTIS creates and distributes many important information products as part of its mission as the U.S. government's central source of business, scientific, and technical information.

Ed Lehmann

Manager, Electronic Products National Technical Information Service

SOLUTIONS FOR. NAICS

To the Editor:

I just reviewed the BUSINESS CONNECTION column "Nearer to NAICS?" and am rather disappointed in some of the coverage you gave to our software product, which SOLUTIONS Software Corporation (httpJ/www.env-sol.com) rushed to Ms. Tudor at her request, and on short notice, so that she could submit her article on time.

There are two serious errors in the article:

1. "The system uses Acrobat's Find function..." While that is a partially true statement (because the Find function can always be used with any Acrobat document), it is also highly misleading, and misrepresents the true power of our product.

Specifically, SOLUTIONS' products use the Acrobat Search function, which allows the user to search all documents in the databases) in a single query with subsecond response time; the Acrobat Find function, on the other hand, only scans a single document, and is very slow.

Because of the inaccurate description of our product, any experienced Acrobat user (such as the information professional subscribing to EContent) reading your article could be misled, and would likely not bother to look further.

Incidentally, I notice that the icons visible on the captured Acrobat screen do not show the Search icons, which are always present when the Acrobat software is correctly installed from our CD-ROM, following the installation procedures that we supply. Since your author did not install the Acrobat software from our CD-ROM, the Search functions would not have been accessible; this could, perhaps, explain the use of Find instead of Search.

Anyone at all interested in fully exploring the capabilities of the product should uninstall the Acrobat Reader and install the more capable "Acrobat Reader with Search" from our CD-ROM. The search indexes for the NAICS and SIC databases will be loaded automatically when you access the Main Menu of the disc.

2. The screen capture in the article at the bottom of page 70 is attributed to "the Census site." The screen in question is clearly one captured from our CD-ROM product, not from the Census site. I strongly object to this misattribution.

Tom Thiersch

Managing Director

SOLUTIONS Software Corporation

SOLUTIONS SCREEN SHOT

From the Editor:

EContent regrets the error in attribution of the screen shot on page 70. It is not from the Census site, as printed in the magazine, but a screen shot from SOLUTIONS Software Corporation's NAICS plus SIC Database. NTIS publishes a product that is very similar in appearance and which contains identical NAICS code information. However, the screen shot on page 70 bears SOLUTIONS Software's volume identifier number (383) in the toolbar at the bottom of the page.

Marydee Ojala

Editor, EContent

BUREAU VAN DIJK'S NAICS

To the Editor:

Reading Jan Davis Tudor's article "Nearer to NAILS?", I was surprised to learn that so many information providers have no immediate plans to integrate the NAILS codes into their products. I was also disappointed that Jan did not mention Bureau van Dijk's early inclusion of the NAILS codes in her article.

Bureau van Dijk (BvD) first introduced searching by NAILS in June of 1998. The company databases that BvD publishes feature a complete cross-referencing of industry codes from across Europe and the U.S. to enable easy, detailed searching for users in all markets. As soon as the NAILS was introduced, BvD recognized the importance of adding the new structure to its search facilities.

Bureau van Dijk now offers searching by 14 different codes on our European database, five codes on our Japanese product, and seven codes on the U.S. and global public company database, Global Researcher. The NAILS has not replaced the U.S. SIC, but supplements it as yet another search option.

Although the mapping of industry codes is a time-consuming and costly process, Bureau van Dijk considers it a necessary product development to ensure the effectiveness and flexibility of our databases for information users worldwide.

Suzanne Clare

VP,U.S. Marketing

Bureau van Dijk

Editor's Note: For a fuller explanation of the BUD Suite, see the review on page 62 in this issue.

POETIC JUSTICE

From the Editor:

Due to editorial error, the name of the poet T. S. Eliot was misspelled in the article by Eugenie Prime ("The Spider, the Fly, and the Internet," EContent, June-July 2000, pp. 24-28). The lines quoted are from "Little Gidding," the fourth of the poems included in his Four Quartets. Thanks are due to Cynthia Monroe, Monroe Knowledge Services, for bringing this to our attention. Your editor, who has a volume of T. S. Eliot on her bookshelf and thus has no excuse for making this mistake, is reminded of some lines from Eliot's "Burnt Norton," the first poem in Four Quartets: "Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still."

Marydee Ojala

Editor, EContent