AUTOMATED SDI SERVICE USING CDROM DATABASES

Bibliographic databases on CDROM, although being updated less frequent ly than their online counterparts, can be used for providing an in-hou se SDI (selective dissemination of information) service as it can be c heaper than the alternatives available from online database services. In a developing country like India, where selling up CDROM networks fo r end-user access is beyond the budgets of most of the libraries/infor mation centres, SDI through CDROM databases is an effective alternativ e. Even in a networked environment, this type of information filtering and delivery may be preferable, as the end-users may not have the mot ivation or time to learn the search software of different CDROM titles . However, most of the popular CDROM search software packages do not s upport any facility to process SDI profiles automatically. One has to execute each saved search strategy and download the corresponding retr ieved records manually. This is quite labour-intensive and time-consum ing. This paper discusses a method of running an SDI service automatic ally using a pair of Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) utilities calle d Stackey and Batutil.