Our lab is considering getting Medline on CD-ROM with either the Knowledge
Finder or Silver Platter package for Macintosh computers. Both packages have
apparently similar costs and functionality. One major difference is that
Knowledge Finder provides 3 years of Medline on 1 CD-ROM (updated quarterly)
whereas Silver Platter comes with only 1 year of Medline per CD-ROM (updated
monthly). All the information I have indicates that both Knowledge Finder and
Silver Platter contain unabridged Medline, so it would seem that Knowledge
Finder is using a more efficient compression system.
We're leaning towards getting the Knowledge Finder package because of the fewer
CD-ROMs, but I'm curious to know what other people think about either Silver
Platter or Knowledge Finder, especially if you have evaluated both of them. I
did look up the bionet archives with Gopher and found a few postings from 1992
with some gripes about Silver Platter, but I couldn't find anything on
Knowledge Finder.
BTW, we are only considering Medline on CD-ROM and not other possibilities like
Internet Medline access with Grateful Med.
Thanks very much!!
Song
Song Tan
Institute for Molecular Biology and Biophysics
ETH-Honggerberg (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
8093 Zurich, Switzerland
email: tan at aeolus.vmsmail.ethz.ch
