INTERNET Search Capabilities

["Lawrenson, Steve" <steve -dot- lawrenson -at- CANADA -dot- CDEV -dot- COM>]

The Company I work for is looking to upgrade its current on-line library
services to enhance our "search" capabilities in many areas; we presently use
a number of Canadian and U.S. based library search services. We are proposing
to buy some commercial CD-ROM databases to do a variety of information
searches in-house. Some typical search examples include:

o Technology searches in the defense related field
o Patent searches
o Searching for test cases for new technology implementation
o Specification and Standards searches
o Computer hardware and software related searches

Before investing in these CD-ROM(s) databases, we thought it prudent to see
if this information is available commercially (and/or free) via the INTERNET.
I know one of our proposed CD-ROM purchases is soon to be available
commercially via the INTERNET (Computer Select: a database of 50 or so
computer magazines covering hardware and software products).

CD-ROMs, although versatile, pose other logistical problems with a company
our size and having different locations (such as the capital acquisition of
CD-ROM readers/jukeboxes, hardware and software support, training, network
considerations, and the conducting of searches-our engineers would rather do
the searches themselves then having to go through a secondary person).

I realize the questions I pose are pretty nebulous, but if you would be kind
enough to share any experiences with information searches via the INTERNET in
a real world situation (how you did it, where you looked, software
requirements, is there an FAQ in this subject area?). If you know of any
specific CD-ROMs/databases available via the NET or any other commercial
"search routes" which satisfy our typical search requirements listed above,
that info would also be appreciated.

These are the search engines I'm presently aware of for the Mac platform
through WWW browsers such as Mosaic, Mosaic Netscape and MacWeb (Lycos Home
Page, WebCrawler, Harvest Information Discovery and Access System, CUI W3,
Jumpstation II, Nomad, ALIWEB, WWWW and ArchiePlexForm).  As for searching
Archie and Veronica sites, TurboGopher and Anarchie seemed to be the best
methods for those kind of sites.

If there is a more appropriate news group to post this message to, please
take the liberty to do so or e-mail me with the appropriate info.

steve -dot- lawrenson -at- gpo -dot- canada -dot- cdev -dot- com
Ottawa, Canada