Scope

• A variety of commands are available that facilitate using Dialog, including
  • Analyzing costs (see also a separate Web pages on controlling costs).
  • Getting help on any operation.
  • Moving around the records.
• I want you to pay particular attention to the "cost" command, as an understanding of the costs of your searching is vital both in the library you may be working in but also in this class, as the occasional student has inadvertently run up thousands of dollars in billing (no, the school is not going to dump on you).

Commands

help

• Just your straight-forward help command.
• It can, though, be combined with a variety of terms or options in the format: help <option>. See help rates below as an example. You can also find the other options by typing: help help

Command	Usage	Examples, Notes
help	h command or file # ? command or file #	h ? select ? 415 h limit 145

cost

• A very important command as noted above. A cost estimate is automatically displayed when you enter begin, logoff, and logoff hold commands.
• The cost command can be entered at any time during your searching to view the estimated costs since you logged on.

Command	Usage	Examples, Notes
cost	cost	Checks costs during a search.

help rates

This will give you rate information about the database you are currently searching.

Command	Usage	Examples, Notes
help rates	help rates <file number>	help rates 415 for database rates

page forward & page backward

Commands	Usage	Examples, Notes
page forward page back	p p-

Show

The show command has two applications.

• Show settings for Set parameters (see below)
• Show the files in your file list, that is the files that you have selected to search.
  • Example: show files

Set

• The set command is used with a variety of words to define what you want to search, how you want aspects of records to be displayed, or to modify account information.
• To find out what set parameters you have set, use the show command.
  • show all - shows all the current parameters
  • show <parameter name> - show a specific set parameter.
  • Example:
    • show cost

Example Uses of Set

Commands	Usage	Examples, Notes
set files	set file #(s) or set <file name(s)>	Use in DialIndex or OneSearch set medicine,88 set 145, 275, 628
set hilight set hi	set hi on <or off> set hilight on	Hilight emboldens the search terms in the returned records. This supposedly can only be used in databases that have a KWIC capability. You can add some symbol (* or - or other) to provide some further identification surrounding the search terms.
set keyword in context - set the number of words	set kwic nn set k nn	kwic displays results showing search terms surrounded by text. You specify the number of surrounding words to be displayed: set kwic 50

Scope

• Suppost that your search has not been sufficiently successful in one file, so you want to switch to another one.
• You do not, though, want to retype your search or lose your current result sets.
• The file command enables you to search in another database without losing the sets created in your search of the previous database.
  • NOTE: The sets of results resulting from your search in the first database(s) cannot be used in any way in the new database.
• You can then use file to switch back to the first database and continue your original search.

Limits

• The file command cannot be used with OneSearch
• Entering a begin command after a file command erases all sets.

Example

Function/Command	Format	Examples, Notes
file	file #	file 275

 Searching Dialog: The Money-Saving Commands

Introduction

• Dialog is a service that has aways existed to make money, even more so as an operation of the very bottom-line-oriented Thomson Corp.
• A database utility such as Dialog also costs a lot to operate. See the "Why Everything Costs So Much" link to get an understanding of that.
• The bottom line, though, for the searcher, for the organization that selects to search Dialog databases, is that it cant be very (even very, very, very) expensive to search, particularly if the search is not well designed or mistakes are made.
  • Two Brief Horror Stories (not by Clive Barker or Stephen King)
    • At a giant corporate law firm that a friend used to work at, the law library had a contract with Dialog that covered upwards of a million dollars of searching a month. A client whose company was looking to establish a manufacturing relationship with a Japanese company needed to know the financials of candidate companies in Japan. Apparently, the person who did the searching made too broad a search on the industry, downloading about 1200 records at over $60 each.
    • A student in this school sometime back was not clear on what they were doing and did a search that used up tens of thousands of our allowance from Dialog.

So,

• It can be very expensive to search, display, and print records on Dialog.
• But, there are some commands that you can use that will track, control and, even, reduce your searching costs.
• These can be used on any of the interfaces to Dialog.

BE SURE TO USE:

• THESE COMMANDS ALL THE TIME WHILE YOU SEARCH.
• THESE COMMANDS in conjunction with the "cost" command, so that you can track your costs on an ongoing basis.

Commands

COMMAND	USAGE	NOTES
help rates	help rates <file number>	help rates 415 To find database rates
cost	cost	Checks costs during a search. Be sure to use periodically to assess the costs of your searching as you are doing it.
pause	pause	You can put your searching on one or more databases on hold for up to 10 minutes. But, only use pause if you are going to be doing something database-related for NO LONGER THAN A FEW SECONDS. This eliminates that database connect charges for the period of the pause, BUT pause has its own charge. Basic Dialog connect charges still run on, so this is not as useful as
logoff, disc, off, bye, quit, stop	logout	Exits you out of Dialog. Use this if you are going to be doing something database-related for LONGER THAN A FEW SECONDS. How much your search costs were will be displayed.
logoff hold (also: off hold, bye hold, etc.)	logoff hold	Also exits you, but keeps the your search results or "sets" for 30 minutes. Within this period, you can reconnect to your search. Log on through exactly the same connection (computer and connection) used in the previous session. Enter your same Dialog user number and password. You should receive the message reconnected rather than logon plus a confirmation of the file to which you have been reconnected. Enter the ds (display sets) command, which should display the sets created prior to your logoff hold command. You can, then, resume your search.
save temp	save temp myfile2	Saves a search for 7 days. Save it as a 1-6 character name. Eg: save temp myfil2 Can be executed later with the exs command Eg: exs myfil2

Cost Considerations

• It costs a lot of money for database developers and publishers to create, maintain, and update databases.
• Similarly, it costs Dialog a lot of money to
  • Host and maintain the databases
  • Serve the information to the public.
  • Market the databases.
• Consequently, using commercial databases and database utilities can be very expensive to end-user institutions and individuals whether you are licensing them or paying search-by-search.

Subscriber/end-user costs for accessing and using Dialog include:

There are are variety of subscription and fee structures available for accessing and using Dialog databases. These include:

• Subscriptions that are based on connect time (see below)
• Subscriptions that are based on the calculation of DialUnits (also see below).
• Fixed or flat-fee licensing contracts a la Gale/Ebsco/Proquest, but these are for a limited number of databases, typically 80 to 125.
• Finally, organizations that make a significant use of Dialog can usually negotiate fixed and/or lower subscription/connect/DialUnit costs depending the number of expected simultaneous users and the amount the organization expects to spend on Dialog searching.

Subscription costs. These include:

• $225 for Sign-up fee.
• $17/month for each password

Purchasing publications (printed and CD-ROM)

These are generally from the individual database publishers. They consist of:

• Search manuals for individual databases range from free to $50 or more.
• Thesauri for individual databases

Connect Time

• There are two general choices in pricing when using Dialog: connect time and DialUnits.
• Connect time to the Dialog service (varies depening on the kind of communications link)
• An idea of the costs can be seen via the documents (.pdf) available through Dialog's General Pricing Information page: http://support.dialog.com/pricing/
• Connect time on specific databases
  • This can run from about $10 per hour to hundreds of dollars per hour depending on the database.
  • The costs for each database can be found by downloading the Dialog Database Rates Connect Time Price per hour (.pdf or Acrobat) file from the Dialog's General Pricing Information http://support.dialog.com/pricing/
  • Connection for individual databases can also be found on their respective Dialog Bluesheets. Indices to these are on the Dialog Bluesheets Web page at: http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/. Click on "Rates" in the top index table for each Bluesheet to be taking to that portion of the Bluesheet with the DialUnit, cost-per-minute, alert, and format display rates

DialUnits

• Ah, the mysterious DialUnits. Just what are they? The following is Dialog's own description:
  • "A DialUnit is a measure of system resources used to execute search and display commands. Each command - except administrative commands, such as the help commands - generates some portion of a DialUnit."
  • In other words, there is a combination of
• Hmmm, okay, well, maybe.... Anyway, how do you calculate the cost of a DialUnit? Again, Dialog:
  • "DialUnits are calculated based on the system resources (commands) that are used from LOGON or a BEGIN command to the next BEGIN command or LOGOFF. DialUnits are tracked as partial units as small as 0.001. [Peanut gallery question: This is a protion of...of what????] DialUnits do not accumulate during "think time" or browsing."
• You're totally clear about it now, right? If not, go to to the DialUnit FAQ at: http://support.dialog.com/faq/dialunits.shtml
• To get an actual idea of what the cost of a DialUnit is, check the same Dialog Database Rates Connect Time Price per hour (.pdf or Acrobat) file from the Dialog's General Pricing Information page: http://support.dialog.com/pricing/. Notice that the cost of each DialUnit ranges (except for Ontap training databases) from $0.70 to over $30 per hour.
• DialUnit costs for individual databases can also be found on their respective Dialog Bluesheets. Indices to these are on the Dialog Bluesheets Web page at: http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/. Click on "Rates" in the top index table for each Bluesheet to be taking to that portion of the Bluesheet with the DialUnit, cost-per-minute, alert, and format display rates.
• One thing that you can do is track the DialUnit costs with the online cost estimator during your search sessions.

Document Display Costs

• These may be per EACH citation, abstract, and/or full-text record.
• Some of the record display costs (Format 9, Keywords in Context, ranking) for each database can be found with the same Dialog Database Rates Connect Time Price per hour (.pdf or Acrobat) file from the Dialog's General Pricing Information page: http://support.dialog.com/pricing/.
• Complete record display costs for individual databases can be found on their respective Dialog Bluesheets. Indices to these are on the Dialog Bluesheets Web page at: http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/. Click on "Rates" in the top index table for each Bluesheet to be taking to that portion of the Bluesheet with the DialUnit, cost-per-minute, alert, and format display rates.

• Other Document Delivery costs
  • Dialog's SourceOne service can provide physical delivery of most documents available in Dialog databases.
  • Modes of delivery include:
    • Fax
    • Mail
    • Express delivery services
• All of your local costs, including:
  • Searching staff
    • Salaries
    • Time
    • Training
  • Computer and software for accessing and printing.
    • Acquisition & installation
    • Maintenance
    • Paper & inks
    • Electricity

Means for controlling costs

• Carefully conducted reference interviews.
• Careful selection of appropriate databases to search.
• This includes using the free acccess to Bluesheets at: http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/
• This includes using free DialogWeb searches for:
  • Frequency of occurrence of search terms in different databases.
  • Availability of journals in various databases.
• Thoroughly preparing searches OFF-line (meaning NOT connected to Dialog). Think, apply your creativity, structure multiple, alternative search statements/strategies offline before going on line.
• Using such Dialog commands as:
  • Pause
  • Logoff Hold
  • Logout
  • Save Temp
  • and the Break Key
• Use of OnTap training databases.

Again, the Money-Saving Commands

Command	Usage	Examples, Notes
help rates	help rates <file number>	help rates 415 To find database rates
cost	cost	Checks costs during a search. Be sure to use periodically to assess the costs of your searching as you are doing it.
pause	pause	You can put your searching on hold for up to 10 minutes. Basic Dialog connect charges still run on.
logout, disc, off, bye, quit, stop	logout	Exits you out of Dialog. How much your search costs were will be displayed.
logout hold (also: off hold, bye hold, etc.)	logout hold	Also exits you, but keeps the your search results or "sets" for 30 minutes.
save temp	save temp	Saves a search for 7 days. Save it as a 1-6 letter name. Can be executed later with the exs command