Promoting and Supporting End-User Online Searching in an Industrial Research Environment: A Survey of Experiences at Exxon Research and Engineering Company

Scientists at Exxon’s basic research facility have been offered the opportunity to learn the basics of online searching of STN databases. A growing number of scientists have their own IDs and search for themselves in their offices. Scientists also have access to menu-driven searching using SearchMaster scripts and the Guided Search feature of STN Express software on a public terminal. End-user searching (of STN, DIALOG, and ORBIT databases) has been slowly increasing. New avenues of supporting and promoting these efforts are explored.