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National Health Service Chooses Dialog as Information Supplier for New Extranet

LONDON (16 April 2003) — Dialog, a Thomson (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC) business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, said today that the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) has incorporated Dialog as a lead information provider in the NHS's new extranet serving users in England.

The NHS's contract with Dialog, with an initial phase of three years, eventually will see up to 1.2 million health care professionals and administrators in England linked through the NHS extranet to information services supplied by Dialog. English universities and other teaching facilities also are now contracting with Dialog to access the Dialog customised content collection directly.

NHS's extranet went live on 1 April 2003.

Content being supplied by Dialog includes articles and reports aggregated from thousands of scientific, technical and medical sources from around the world, plus an e-linking feature that seamlessly takes users from document titles to online e-journals.

NHS's choice of Dialog is part of the £4.8 million National Core Content Project, which is designed to provide NHS staff and its constituents with online access to a core collection of key electronic knowledge resources. Other information vendors contracted by the NHS are ProQuest and BioMed.

"The scope of the NHS's extranet project fits perfectly with Dialog technology and our ability to deliver custom content solutions on an enterprise basis," said Ciaran Morton, Dialog executive vice president and the senior executive for the company's operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. "Our ability to win this tender underscores the value of our position as the leading aggregator of diverse content from thousands of sources, our custom technology delivery platforms and our broad and deep customer support programs, all of which allow for rapid deployment of enterprise solutions for organisations the size of NHS."

Professor Tony Butterworth, chair of the board that chose Dialog, said: "I am delighted that the first national collaborative procurement for electronic information resources has produced such positive results. This is an excellent example of modernisation through collaboration."

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

Today, Dialog online services — 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.

Corporate librarians, knowledge managers, other 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 worldwide. For more information about Dialog, please visit www.dialog.com. Or, please call (U.S./Canada) 800-3-DIALOG or (U.S.) 919-462-8600. The Dialog London office may be reached at (44) (0) 207-940-6900.

About The Thomson Corporation
The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), with 2002 revenues of $7.8 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges (TSX: TOC; NYSE: TOC). For more information: www.thomson.com.

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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