INFORMATION UPDATE  
   May 2005                              Number 62

Welcome to INFORMATION UPDATE, now into our 6th year of
publication.

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IN THIS ISSUE
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   => Do It Yourself - Spelling Matters
   => Did You Know? - More Special Issues
   => Notes, News and Announcements
   => Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information

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DO IT YOURSELF - Spelling Matters
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Last month I had the privilege of attending a gathering of
brilliant information professionals, including some of the
best searchers on the planet.  In discussing strategies for
gathering market and industry research from the Internet,
a colleague from England pointed out the obvious - spelling
matters.  For example, suppose you're interested in an over-
view of the tire industry.   You start with a broad search 
in a general Internet search engine such as Google.

Enter: tire industry - get over 350 million hits
Enter: tire industry trends overview - down to 162,000 hits

So where's the spelling question?  You are interested in the
tire industry in England, in which case the search term 
becomes 'tyre' because that's how 'tire' is spelled in
British English.

Enter: tyre industry trends overview - get 85,600 hits

Now we're getting somewhere.

You can even narrow this more in Google by adding a domain
limiter.

Enter: tyre industry trends overview site:.uk to limit
the search to Internet sites in the UK, thus eliminating 
India, New Zealand, and other countries using the 'tyre' 
spelling.  Now we get 11,900 hits.

So, you get the idea.  There are lots of ways to add pre-
cision to an Internet search, and spelling is an important
option for targeted results.

For a nice list of British vs. American spellings, go to
http://www.xpdnc.com/moreinfo/orlabour.html

Thanks to Arthur Weiss, for sharing his search strategies.
http://www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk/aboutus.htm

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DID YOU KNOW? - More Special Issues
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Last month we talked about the fact that magazines and 
journals often publish special issues by topic, usually on a 
predictable schedule.  For instance, "Consumer Reports"
always publishes its automobile issue in April.  So how 
do we find out about these special issues?

Shamel Information Services subscribes to a service that
focuses on indexing publications with an eye to those special
issues.  So we can search for the tire industry in this data-
base to see if any trade publications contain a tire industry
overview.

As it happens, they do. The January 2004 issue of Modern
Tire Dealer is an Annual Facts Issue with data on brand
share, tire shipments, plant capacities, retail pricing, and
more.  This looks like a good place to start in understanding
the tire industry.

For more information, contact Shamel Information Services, 
858-673-4673 or mailto:cshamel@shamelinfo.com

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Notes, News, and Announcements
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June 5, 2005   SLA Annual Conference, Toronto Canada
"Market and Industry Research Focusing on Biomedical Business"
Half day workshop.
http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2005/index.cfm

Upcoming New Book Alert
"Yahoo! to the Max" by Randolph Hock is coming soon.  Watch
next month's edition of this newsletter for a complete review.
Hock has also authored "The Extreme Searcher's Internet 
Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher."

>>Information Seekers may now subscribe to Information Update
using the web form at http://shamelinfo.com.  If someone has
forwarded this newsletter to you, why not register for your
own free copy?  Use the form on the Shamel Information
Services web site at http://shamelinfo.com.

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Shamel Information Services Web Site 
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The Shamel Information Services web site at 
http://shamelinfo.com contains Information Update archives. 
Just click on "Newsletters" and check for any issues you 
might have missed.

Cynthia L. Shamel, editor

Shamel Information Services

Telephone: 858-673-4673

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Copyright 2005 Shamel Information Services

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