Greetings all--

I wanted to report back on the results posed to my question about
preferences between SPIN and IRIS.  The question had been
posed before and I appreciate that Steve Fitzgerald at the University
of Central Florida and Sandy Schulte of the University of Connecticut
Research Foundation forwarded the responses they had received on the
same question to me.

There were 17 unduplicated responses (some people had responded
to an earlier request also).

In 13 of the responses, people had had experience with both SPIN
and IRIS so comparisons could be made.

Preferred:
 SPIN = 4
 IRIS = 8
 Equal = 1

Comments were also made about DIALOG, SMARTS, COS,
ORYX and FastWeb.

People noted advantages and disadvantages of each system.  Major
points included ease of use (especially for untrained faculty),
extent of information in each document, cost, specific needs of a
unit, stage of development or updatein the software, and  access to
additional search machines from other sources.

Several respondents noted that our work as research administrators
just begins with a search, that it is not the end-all to our seeking
resources to help faculty.  From there we track down other sources,
make phone calls or have the faculty contact funding sources, use
other search mechanisms etc.

Thanks to all of you who responded.  If the question should arise
again,  I can contribute these data as a starter.

Chuck
xxxxxx@uncrc.univnorthco.edu