Glimpses into the `New Online Order'...

Volume 17, Number 1 • January 2000

Glimpses into the 'New Online Order' ... and some helpful tips for how to build the perfect info-pro portal
by Barbara Quint

QUINT'S ONLINE column reports that the New Online Order has arrived and everyone has become an online searcher. Notes that the Internet created the platform for a universal answering tool by linking sources designed around specific views of user needs and of a site's resources to respond to those interests. Looks at what features and content a portal designed for information professionals would need. Says that it would round up all the sources professionals use today and plan to use tomorrow, provide all the writings in the field, along with links to professional associations and computer coverage of professional conferences, draw on professional literature from related fields, etc. Observes that professionals usually have options for reaching different data, but if the portal could offer ways to use its resources more efficiently, that should ensure users stay with the portal throughout the search process.