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Dialog Strengthens Content, Service Features
For Chemical Industry

Company to Highlight Enhancements at ACS Conference in New York

CARY, NC, USA (August 26, 2003) — Dialog, a Thomson (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC) business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, today said that it will highlight recent content and service enhancements at the upcoming 226th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting (September 7 – 11, New York City).

Dialog is the world's largest aggregator of information used by chemical industry professionals worldwide.

Information and knowledge managers, manufacturing decision-makers, engineers, chemists and metallurgists, research managers, product specialists, as well as legal, patent and regulatory affairs officers within chemical companies, use Dialog services for a wide range of research and industry tracking needs.

Specific enhancements to be showcased at the ACS conference include:

• The creation of a robust, one-stop resource for finding a range of articles, reports and proceedings related to toxicology.

• A dramatic expansion in the number of e-journals that can be linked to seamlessly from Dialog-retrieved abstracts and citations.

• The ability to order displayable abstracts of journal articles, patents and other documents published by Chemical Abstracts Service.

"Professionals in the international chemical industry have long looked to us as their information services provider of choice," said Cynthia Murphy, Dialog senior vice president of strategic marketing. "We are committed to a process of continual improvements to the broad portfolio of content and features we offer them. We're eager to showcase our recent enhancements at the ACS conference."

Toxfile: One-Stop Resource

Researchers studying the side effects of chemical compounds, the impact of pollution on human health and other issues related to toxicology rely on ToxFile, a database available through Dialog® (File 156) and Dialog DataStar™ (file: TOXL).

Dialog recently enhanced ToxFile by integrating additional toxicology content gathered from the U.S. National Library of Medicine that covers toxicology, hazardous chemicals and related areas, as well as references from an assortment of specialized journals and other sources published by government departments and international organizations. Other information providers contributing content to ToxFile through the National Library of Medicine include the International Labor Office, the Swedish National Chemicals Inspectorate and numerous others.

The result of the content integration effort is that ToxFile is now the chemical industry's premier one-stop information resource for toxicological research and news.

For more information about ToxFile, please view the ToxFile Bluesheet for Dialog and the ToxFile Datasheet for Dialog DataStar.

CAS Abstracts

Through an agreement with Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), Dialog®Web (Guided Search mode) users can now request and then purchase multiple corresponding full abstracts when searching CA Search files (file numbers 308-314, 399), which include more than 16 million bibliographic references and indexing in chemistry and related sciences (from 1967 onward) produced by CAS.

Abstracts of the material covered by CAS include critical scientific research, regulatory and patent resources required by chemical industry scientists, researchers, engineers, attorneys, intellectual property managers and others.

Links to e-Journals

Dialog recently announced that an additional 77 publishers of highly valued scientific, technical and medical (STM) information from around the world are now working with Dialog to offer e-Journal links.

Dialog offers immediate online linking from abstracts and citations to the full texts of the referenced articles in journals published by more than 115 publishers or information aggregators contracted with publishers. The total number of e-journals available for linking through Dialog services is now more than 11,000, most of which are peer-reviewed STM publications. For a complete list of aggregators and publishers, please visit http://www.dialog.com/products/ejournal/aggregators.shtml.

When a Dialog subscriber views a citation or abstract of an article for which linking is available, the Dialog system recognizes that the user's organization has a subscription to the displayed e-journal or an agreement with an aggregator representing the publisher. The user is then presented with a link in the search output. By clicking on the link, the user is taken directly to the publisher's or aggregator's online site, where the full text of that specific article is displayed.

Information professionals, on behalf of their organizations, control subscriptions setup and management through an administrative tool called Dialog Subscription Manager.

Before Dialog began enabling links to electronic journals last year, users would retrieve a citation or abstract of the article they sought, and then would have to take another step to access an e-journal site to retrieve the desired document in fulltext form. The e-Journal linking capability now offered by Dialog eliminates the need for that additional step.

More Information

Chemical industry professionals who would like more information about content and service features available through Dialog are invited to contact us to learn more.

- Ends -

About Dialog and The Thomson Corporation
Dialog, a pioneer in developing the technology behind electronic information retrieval, is the world leader in providing online-based information services to organizations seeking competitive advantages in such fields as business, science, engineering, finance and law.

Today, the online services provided by Dialog — offered through the Dialog®, Dialog Profound®, Dialog DataStar™, NewsEdge and Intelligence Data brands — give users the ability to precisely retrieve data from more than 1.4 billion unique records, accessible via the Internet or through delivery to enterprise intranets. Searchable content includes articles and reports from thousands of real-time news feeds, newspapers, broadcast transcripts and trade publications, plus research reports and analyst notes providing support for financial decision-making, as well as in-depth repositories of scientific and technical data, patents, trademarks and other intellectual property data. Information professionals and end-users at business, professional and government organizations in more than 100 countries prize Dialog services for their depth and breadth of content, precision searching and speed.

Based in Cary, N.C., USA, Dialog has operations in 31 other countries. Dialog (www.dialog.com) is a business of The Thomson Corporation (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC). With 2002 revenues of US$7.8 billion, Thomson (www.thomson.com) is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers.

All designated trademarks used herein are the property of The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries. Registered marks are registered by The Dialog Corporation or its subsidiaries with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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