In 1994, I overheard one boss tell another that all e-mail would ever be was a toy for the researchers. One late-1990s conference session covered whether workers were wasting their time on the Internet. Fast-forward to the 21st century. We sit on the outer edge of the information universe with our T-3 lines on our top resources lists. It's easy to admit that the Internet (and Internet Prospector ) unlocked the door to international research. Those of us with one International Who's Who on our 1994 bookshelves now move deeply down the electronic path to identify prospects globally. Wasting time? There isn't enough of it, for all the information we have to manage.

In the first international column I read in Internet Prospector 10 years ago, my now dear friend Pam Smith wrote, "It's a BIG WORLD out there!" She took us by the hand and traipsed to Japan on a gopher where she promptly found one of her organization's donors. Talk about adventuring!

So, let's wax nostalgic for a few minutes. Tune in Ace of Base on your Web radio and we'll zip back to the Internet's Mesozoic Era in the realm of international research. As Ace of Base sang to us a decade ago, "I saw the sign and it opened up my mind."

CONTENTS:

• Central Europe Online
• GlobalEDGE
• UK Directory

CENTRAL EUROPE ONLINE

In February 1995, Helen Brown shared CET-Online with readers. Little did we all know that Helen would be working in Europe when Internet Prospector reached age 10. Helen's 1995 review mentions the daily CET's length (6-8 pages), so there's one big change -- print vs. electronic copies of anything. Central Europe Online is now a division of EINnews and is fee-based (how often as that happened in the last 10 years?). If you have many prospects in this region, the free one-week trial will give you a chance to evaluate this resource.

http://www.einnews.com/centraleurope/

GLOBALEDGE

By December 1995, the entire Internet Prospector team was international research-crazy. Almost the whole issue was devoted to non-USA Web resources. One of the best old friends among those was Michigan State University's International Business Resources on the WWW (yes, the WWW. Ah, the old days . . .). GlobalEDGE is the modern incarnation of MSU's page. Old friend Chris Mildner wrote then: "<!> Don't miss this one <!>" and that sage advice is still true. Information is organized under Research (Government Resources, Rankings), News, Trade (Trade Portals, Trade Leads), Money (Stock Exchanges) and Reference (Standards and Conversions), just to name the most research-tempting. GlobalEDGE could be your international research launch point.

http://globaledge.msu.edu/ibrd/ibrd.asp

UK DIRECTORY

By mid-1996, we received this communication from Sam Tilling in London, England: "I came across the Prospector page at a recent seminar." Imagine that news of Internet Prospector had crossed the pond and people were talking about it in classes. Sam shared the Financial Times (http://news.ft.com/) and Hemmington Scott's (http://www.hemscott.net/) home pages, grand favorites even today. She also sent along news of the UK Directory, a search engine with a category-based option. Researchers will pay close attention to Library, Finance and Business. Visit the site today and you'll learn that UK Directory just acquired Looksmart UK's directory.

http://www.ukdirectory.co.uk/

Cecilia Hogan

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