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IP View Rebecca Jones and Jane Dysart, Editors - Intranet Professional In the January/February 2000 issue, Bonnie Burwell published the first overview of the intranet "toolkits" available from the content providers [https://www.infotoday.com/IP/jan00/ipab1.htm]. It was one of the most popular articles of last year. Many readers told us that it was the starting point they needed for understanding what these toolkits were, who was offering them, and how they compared. We're delighted that Bonnie agreed to update this overview, which was no easy undertaking. Vendor developments are evolving so quickly that many of her findings were being edited even as we were going to print. Bonnie also struggled with which vendors to include. Our decision was to include the same four covered last year: Dialog, Factiva, LEXIS-NEXIS, and West Group. She's agreed to cover other vendors, such as Northern Light, in future issues. No matter what tool organizations use to integrate content into their intranets, they all contend with seemingly never-ending copyright conundrums. Lesley Ellen Harris, well-known e-commerce lawyer and expert on copyright and licensing [http://www.copyrightlaws.com/], begins a three-part series on negotiating and licensing intranet-bound content. Stay tuned for the next installments in the May/June and July/August issues. Seth Earley [http://www.earley.com] writes what we have long been hoping for—an introduction to knowledge mapping. To keep on developments in this area you may also want to check out KnowMap [http://www.knowmap.com]. Another topic we've long wrestled to bring to print is that of search engines for intranets and portals. It seems we aren't alone here. One of our favorite sites for keeping up on portal trends is Traffic: The Portal Portal [http://www.traffick.com/]. In addition to their daily news briefs on the portal industry, the site has some excellent discussion forums, one of which is on Search Engines [http://pub14.ezboard.com/btraffickcommunity]. The discussion has recently focused on various types of "overlooked portal tools," some of which are search engines. Next month we'll feature an investigative look at the land of intranet search engines and see if there are many solutions out there for under $150,000 U.S. Yikes. Although those of us who are involved with intranets tend to forget it, many organizations do not have intranets. Some organizations are still seeking corporate support for an intranet, others have a number of internal stakeholders, from HR to IT, struggling to head the initiative, and still others are working to patch together small departmental intranet projects into a cohesive model. Many of us tend to regard intranets as an integral component for knowledge management. So it was very interesting to hear at a recent knowledge management conference [http://worldcongress.mcmaster.ca] that Health Canada, which has no intranet, has a number of knowledge management initiatives underway. "How?," you ask. Databases. Instead of an intranet, the Health Canada gateway is a database of databases. Do you know of
other organizations like Health Canada that are using alternative models
to intranets? Please--let us know for an upcoming article on "What to Do
When There Is No Intranet." And, let us know about the intranet toolkits
you are using or investigating. As always, we look forward to hearing from
you.
Rebecca and
Jane
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