Introduction:

To the vast majority of people, the world contains an overwhelming amount of information stored in a seemingly endless number of locations. Finding the exact information you want exactly when you want it can be a great help, and it's the job of an Information Professional (also referred to as a "Database Researcher", "Data Miner", or "Information Retrieval Specialist") to make this possible.

Information Professionals are trained in the format and indexing used by each of a number of publicly-available (eg: the Internet) and subscription-based (eg: Ei Compendex) databases covering scientific, technical, business, marketing, product, vendor, news, and reference information, as well as the search syntax and commands required to effectively search through each one. Using this knowledge, they efficiently locate, retrieve, review, and deliver concise packages of information to their clients based on their specific information request.

My Job Responsibilities:

For over six years of my career I worked as a "Technical Specialist" for a small Information Aggregator &Technology-Transfer firm, where I performed a wide variety of tasks, including:

• performing synergistic literature research on over 150 proprietary and publicly-available databases of publications covering science, technology, patents, trademarks, marketing, business, products, vendors, government, contract, and reference information
• creating and implementing automatic "alerts" designed to notify the customer of new publications on their specific question or subject of interest
  
• providing live, realtime product demonstrations to decision makers of companies considering the service for the first time
• teaming with sales staff to retain customers reluctant to renew their contract
  
• providing live, realtime remote training to customers subscribing to the service, in a one-to-one or one-to-many setting
• authoring NTIS Bibliographic summaries, including appropriate indexing & keywords
  
• testing database updates for completeness and accuracy
• training and mentoring new hires
• suggesting improvements to existing products & services
• proposing new products & services to enhance revenue
  
• ...and more!
  

During this time, I performed over 3,000 research requests per year for the firm's clients - or, an average of one every 33 minutes. Many of these requests involved highly technical topics for many of the United States' best-known firms.

Databases Researched:

The truly fantastic aspect of this job was not just that the literature research topic would change every thirty minutes or so, keeping boredom to a minimum, but also the sheer amount of published data available to research through when answering any given topic: Over 150 databases collectively containing tens of millions of well-written, accurate, peer-reviewed, heavily-indexed publications from well known and highly-respected database providers.

Here is a list of the databases I researched on a routine basis for my clients:

	Database Name	Code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10	Aerospace Database Aluminum Industry Abstracts Alloys Index Business Dateline Commerce Business Daily Conference Papers Index Dissertation Abstracts Aerospace/Defense Markets & Technology Coal Abstracts Engineered Materials Abstracts	AEO AIA ASM BDL CBD CRT DMI DMT EDB EIX
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Energy Information File ESPACE-ACCESS FINDEX Freedonia Industry Analysis Frost & Sullivan Market Reports Federal Register Database Inform Ei Compendex*Plus Materials Business File New Product Announcements	EMA EPO FDX FIA FNS FRP INF INS MDB NPA
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30	Official Patent Gazette PROMT Society of Automotive Engineers Society of Manufacturing Engineers U.S. Trademark File Table of Contents Thomas Register of American Manufacturers Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports Ward's Business Directory Who's Who in Technology	PAT PMT SAE SME TMK TOC TRM USG WBD WHO
31	Weldasearch	WLD

Of course, when appropriate I also used any of the other 120 or so electronic databases and myriad of hardcopy reference materials available in-house, as well as the world wide web and old-fashioned networking by telephone, in order to satisfy my clients.

Clients Served:

At the peak of my work for this firm I was directly responsible for ensuring the satisfaction of over seventy (70) companies, each having a number of their employees using the service. Collectively, these companies covering a wide variety of industries, products, and services, and below I've listed a few of them:

Vehicle Tires Polymer Compounding Avionics Centrifugal Pumps & Compressors Security Products Bicycles & Sporting Goods Arcade & Amusement Devices Automobile Manufacturer

Aviation & Defense Contractors Household Appliances R&D Laboratories Electrical Products Water Treatment Equipment Airfoil Manufacture etc

Many of these companies are well-known, but modesty (and, the advice of my lawyer) prevents me from listing them: If you would like to see them,   and I'll send you login credentials to access the password-protected content.

For More Information...

Just drop me a line:    and ask your questions, send a compliment, or offer a suggestion!