New Platform, Products from Gale

by Michael Rogers -- Library Journal, 05/29/2007

Thomson Gale is emerging from its recent purchase by private equity investors with its immediate plans intact. Shortly after the announced acquisition, Thomson’s Jay Flynn, VP and publisher, and Nader Qaimari, senior director, paid an informative visit to LJ’s Manhattan digs, bringing news of a new platform and some new publishing endeavors that will lead the company into different areas of information, including travel (adding the full run of Fodor’s books to InfoTrac) and pet health, as well as adding multimedia content to databases. Flynn also contends that there’s a “tremendous amount of value yet to be added to all reference products.” Qaimari told LJ that a federated searching feature is being added to PowerSearch, which will allow users to cross search outside Gale databases. Gale is licensing Groxis’s visual search service, which also will search text. This and other changes were the result of numerous conversations not just with academic faculty and librarians of every ilk, but with users as well—an important focus.