Libr 244: Comparison of Search Services



Katrina Deliramich
November 28. 2010
Libr 244

Comparison of Search Services

“What are the differences between information that is free versus information that has a cost? …There are several… important distinctions, such as aggregation and organization of information, associated services, currency, reliability, comprehensiveness, and ease of use, that may add value to the information. Those differences may add enough value that paying for fee based information resources is worthwhile.” (Department of the Navy, 2005)
In 1964 the first third generation computers were introduced by IBM. Third generation computers changed the face of information retrieval by providing a way to create massive databases that could be accessed worldwide. Dialog is an online search service that provides access to information focusing on business, science, engineering, finance and law. They claim to be the “worldwide leader in providing online-based information services.” (Dialog, 2010).   Lexis-Nexis is the leading provider of information for legal consultants. They have access to court cases and judgments as well as information for law enforcement and government agencies. Lexis-Nexis also reaches across the globe to over 100 countries with access to their products. Factiva is an online search service that provides information and newspapers on business topics. Factiva “the world’s best publisher of high quality, indispensable and conveniently accessible business and related content…” (Globe Newswire, 2010).
Dialog was created in 1967. Roger Summit headed the development team through many trials an errors until finally clenching a contract from NASA in 1966. Dialog became a databases used by end users and librarians. Dialog has gone through many changes to get to where it is today. In the beginning only one searcher could search Dialog at a time. With improvements Dialog soon earned the contract for the U.S. Office of Education and databases were installed onto their computers.  Soon Dialog was a part of a full-fledged business including three original databases: ERIC, NTS and Pandex. Today Dialog consists of over 531 databases and is continuing to grow and strives to meet all the information needs of the public.
Dating as far back as 1960 Lexis-Nexis has been an ever-evolving product. In 1973 Lexis-Nexis was introduced and became an integral part in the world of law. According to the Lexis-Nexis timeline, in 1997 Lexis-Nexis debuted the first web-based service for United States legal professionals. Today Lexis-Nexis contains over 200,000 judgments and over 40,000 case commentaries. Reaching over 100 countries, Lexis-Nexis is a global company.  Lexis-Nexis strives to gather ad listen to customer concerns and suggestions to continue to expand and grow a productive product.
In 1999 Factiva was co-founded by both Reuters and Dow Jones. In 2006 Factiva became 100% owned by Dow Jones. Factiva has always provided good service to researchers but by becoming solely owned by Dow Jones the goal was to make Factiva even more indispensable to public and corporate parties. Factiva provides access to 1500 global and local newspapers, 3200 magazines, 500 newswires and 160 media programs. Information is contained from over 42,000 companies. Factiva contains 28,000 sources in over 20 languages. Factiva continues to remain the leader in financial news and business related content.
            Dialog, Lexis-Nexis and Factiva all have their main specialties when searching for information. Each search service provides many options while searching. Narrowing a search can be useful when search results can number in the thousands. Here is some information on each search services search capabilities:
Dialog has a broad range of search capabilities. Dialog allows you to do cross searches and specify certain journals, dates, companies, countries and much more. By being able to narrow down the categories you can receive the correct results much easier than with some other sites. Dialog is also said to have all the files that the other search engines contain. Whereas Factiva and Lexis-Nexis have their specialty areas, Dialog covers everything you could ever want.
 Lexis-Nexis search capabilities rely on many different options. Searches can be Command driven or you can use natural language. Searches can be narrowed using search by states separately or in groups. You also have a large choice of many sources to search directly from.  Lexis-Nexis excels at searching for law, public records and news coverings. By combining web-based technologies and company profiles Lexis-Nexis allows people all over the world to access their information using many different languages in their search options.
When using Factiva the focus of searches is mainly on business information. The updated Factiva focuses on searches with more information than the previous heading display results. This allows for a cleaner, easier to use Factiva. When searching on Factiva you can now combine searches, link information and make new connections. This allows the user to limit their number of searches and can help save time. Searches can be done using 20 language choices, company names, sources, industry, region and much more. Although Factiva is focused on business they also contain information on healthcare, sports, arts and agriculture, just to name a few.
            Dialog, Lexis-Nexis and Factiva all have learning curves for the average user. Dialog is much more complicated than the other two search services and can be almost impossible for a new researcher to use without training. Lexis-Nexis and Factiva can be used by the public user but if you know more information about the search services you can be more successful in your searches. When choosing a search service to subscribe to ease of use is very important. Here is an overview of these search services ease of use:
            Dialog has been around for many years and they have continually updated their product to provide a sophisticated look for every generation. Dialog offers a customized interface to provide users with ease when searching. Their goal is to provide accessibility to everyone, despite their education and training. Dialog has many different versions to choose from each with pro’s and con’s for the average user. In using Dialog1 the user does not need command of the search language. Easy “one-click” interfaces allow you to find the information you want quickly and easily. For those with more knowledge of the commands DialogClassic is the perfect choice to access information online in a line-oriented interface. With eight versions to choose from Dialog is customizable to almost anyone.
The original Lexis-Nexis is changing to become one Global Nexis.com. Although Lexis-Nexis is limited in some areas the ease of use can make up for limitations. Drop down menu’s are available for those who need them and you also have the option to search using Boolean operations as well. Although these search options allow users to search easier than with Dialog, Lexis-Nexis can be confusing while searching and can lead to unwanted searches that you get charged for even if the information you requested was wrong for something as simple as a typo. Because there are so many sources to choose from with Lexis-Nexis, a new searcher can have difficulty finding what they are looking for on the first search.
Factiva has a great and simple interface that is very similar to well known search engines today. Because search boxes are easy to locate and easy to understand the average user can search without needing a training background in Factiva. Public libraries would benefit from Factiva because their patrons can use the search service, freeing up the librarians time.  Factiva is known for talking to their customers before making changes. Access to a pull down menu allows you to easily create searches and boundaries. You can change date ranges to as many dates as you want or to just one year. You can also specify finding only articles that happened in the last day, week or month. When viewing search results you can sort by relevance or publication date. The only draw back to searching with Factiva is the number of results that you can receive. Having such simple limitations can cause a headache when you need one specific article.
When comparing ease of use between the three search services it is clear that while Factiva is the easiest of the three for the average user to use, Dialog can provide the most varied options for someone looking for a great search service option. In a study by Montague Institute, corporate librarians prefer Dialog to Lexis-Nexis. However, academic librarians prefer Lexis-Nexis over Dialog. The reason for these facts can be ascertained by the ease of use provided. Lexis-Nexis is much easier to use than Dialog in academic settings. If a company is able to afford training Dialog can gather more personalized results than using Lexis-Nexis or Factiva.
            When choosing to subscribe to a paid service it is important to study the different prices and services provided for your money. Dialog, Lexis-Nexis and Factiva are all paid subscription services. The following information is on libraries budgets and the cost of these search services:
When the state of the economy dropped Dialog was hit with less librarians, information professionals and libraries subscribing to their product. Instead of giving up, Dialog launched a program to offer a 10% discount to laid off librarians and information professionals. They also provided a free 90-day trail of their search service to everyone. From a survey I found performed by the University of Kansas only four libraries out of 143 libraries asked, used Dialog and each of the libraries had a budget of approx. 500,000-1,000,000.  Dialog is an expensive service but they do have an option to pay 1,000 a month to get access to DialogSelect, although limited in results it is great for the individual user or small company. A benefit of Dialog is the free option in format 6 that allows you to view a part of the article without having to purchase it. This allows users to choose the correct articles instead of having to pay or pass up articles that show little information in the search results. Dialog provides cheaper searches for items such as newspapers, on average a newspaper search would be between $5-10 dollars using Dialog.
Lexis-Nexis receives varied reports on cost compared to service provided. Many people feel Lexis-Nexis is too expensive and using Dialog is cheaper and more worthwhile. In a survey from the University of Kansas, from a total of 143 libraries asked only one library used Lexis-Nexis. The budget for the library was less than 300,000.  Lexis-Nexis offers pay-as-you go options to pay for certain searches or by articles. Lexis-Nexis is said to be more expensive overall than Dialog when budgeting search-by-search prices. On average a newspaper search would be between $20-50 dollars using Lexis-Nexis and this amount does not include the full-text article. Complaints about Lexis-Nexis being hard to use and being difficult to find information on the first search increases the price a subscriber would have to pay. Lexis-Nexis charges by the search and then adds on the article price.
Factiva has switched their pricing to now having transaction based pricing to allow more people to use their program at a lower budget. Factiva offers price per articles payments and monthly payment options. Personal subscribers are also available with Factiva.  Factiva has offered one low annual fee to individual users ranging at $69 dollars. On top of this fee there is a $2.95 fee for each article accessed with full-text. Monthly contracts can range around $1,000 dollars for corporate users. Overall users have said that Factiva does not contain the scope of the other search services but it does allow the everyday user access at a more reasonable price.
Unfortunately the economy has not been doing very well lately and it has affected many areas of the library including subscription services. In the University of Kansas survey of the 143 libraries asked only 53 libraries total reported having subscriptions to online search services. Although Dialog, Lexis-Nexis and Factiva might not be in the budget for libraries it is important for libraries to be in the forefront of information retrieval. With desktop-based information being available it might be worth the extra money to keep the library in the competition of other libraries. Many companies are working with the libraries to provide lower pricing and limited features to meet the needs of each library.
            All three search services boast about what their product can do and how much access they have to great information. However, if a person cannot figure out how the search engine operates it can hinder their accessing the information they need. I took an in-depth look at all three search services and their overall access to information.
Dialog has many positive things being said about their access to information. Of all three search services, Dialog is said to have the broadest access and the most information for your money. It can be difficult for new users to figure out all the commands on Dialog but once the search strategy is mastered Dialog provides a comprehensive overview of newspapers, articles, and thousands of sources.
A study at Princeton University compared the usability of Factiva to Lexis-Nexis. There results found that Lexis-Nexis had information on law, primarily. United States laws were covered in Lexis-Nexis but none were covered by Factiva. Both contain full-text searches and both had access to newspapers. Overall Lexis-Nexis was the best choice for law students over Factiva. Princeton University felt that both Lexis-Nexis and Factiva contained only a few scholarly journals and neither contained many pictures.
When using Factiva there is concern about newspaper articles not being preserved right. Associated Press articles are not provided on Factiva or Lexis-Nexis. This provides corruption with the newspapers that neither editorial files, commercial databases and press files can capture completely.  Factiva has integrated itself into Microsoft Office to make their information more accessible.  Access to 8,000 sources is available with Factiva. Over one hundred countries are covered along with many newspapers such as Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Factiva also provides information before the publication date.
            When conducting the research on Dialog, Lexis-Nexis and Factiva I was positive the overall results would tell me that Dialog was too expensive and therefore not used by most libraries. I felt Factiva would be the most useful for libraries since it was the simplest to use. I was surprised to learn how favorably Dialog is looked at in the library world. Many surveys and articles boasted about all the information that could be found on Dialog compared to every other search service. Dialog takes time to master and is not a great choice for the average user, but it is overall the best choice for librarians and information professionals. I would find Factiva to be the overall best choice for libraries on a small budget and who cannot afford to send their staff to training classes for Dialog.



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