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Australian Content Added to Dialog® NewsRoom

Palamedia’s ABIX Database Includes Fairfax Publications, Numerous Others

LONDON (18 January 2005) — Dialog, a Thomson (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, said today it has integrated the ABIX database of Australian editorial content into its Dialog® NewsRoom service.

ABIX features abstracts of articles published by 122 mostly Australian newspapers, magazines and news services — including leading dailies published by John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. — which are now available within hours through Dialog NewsRoom.

The database is published by Palamedia Limited (www.palamedia.com.au), an Australian-based provider of business and financial media services. Palamedia produces its abstracts hours after articles and reports are first published in the Australian and Asian media. Weekday publications are often available through Dialog NewsRoom by 8 a.m. (Eastern Australian Time) on the same day as publication. Other titles normally are available within one day.

More than 500 fulltext and abstracted Australian sources are now available through Dialog NewsRoom, including reporting from the Australian Associated Press, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and News Ltd.

"Australia is an important market for us," said Viji Krishnan, Dialog vice president of publisher management, "both because of our customers there and because of the interest in Australian business and finance by our users worldwide. For many years, we have been a leader in bringing the world's business information, news and market intelligence to Australia and Australia's to the world. Our new alliance with Palamedia strengthens our commitment to Australia."

The Australian publications in the ABIX database include newspapers, business publications and journals covering numerous industries, such as accounting, advertising/marketing, banking, construction, engineering, environment and science, financial services, food and grocery, graphics/printing, healthcare, human resources, IT/Internet/knowledge management, law, mining/resources/energy, packaging, property/real estate, retail, taxation and travel and tourism. General political and economic news is also included.

"As an Australian business information service with a valued reputation, we produce our information according to the highest principles of accuracy, accessibility and timeliness," said Palamedia's ABIX chief editor, Jane Sunderland. "The key to ABIX's easy-to-read and easily assimilated content is our team of skilled information analysts who abstract fulltext articles to produce concise executive summaries, providing users with fast access to the key points of a fulltext article."

Of the 122 abstracted sources supplied by Palamedia, 59 are sources that had previously been available through Dialog NewsRoom but were until now not being updated. With the integration of the ABIX database, there is now no gap in the archived coverage of those sources.

Some of the ABIX sources are from New Zealand and Asia. One of the non-Australian titles is the influential, Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review, which had been available through Dialog NewsRoom but is now being updated more quickly after print publication.

Dialog NewsRoom is an online database composed of aggregated news and business information content drawn from more than 10,000 sources published or broadcast in 129 countries and in 13 languages. It is available as a stand-alone service (www.dialognewsroom.com) or as a component of other Dialog services.

Sources include newspapers, newswires, and transcripts of broadcast reports, specialty newsletters, trade media and scholarly journals. Most of the sources are archived, with some stretching back 30 years.

Searching and retrieving articles and reports through Dialog NewsRoom is optimized by SmartTerms^SM, the underlying taxonomy (or indexing system) used in the service. The proprietary SmartTerms^SM taxonomy utilizes more than 855,000 terms — twice as many as Dialog's nearest competitor — to index content.

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 organisations 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®, Dialog NewsEdge® and Dialog Intelliscope^SM 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 organisations 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 27 countries. Dialog (www.dialog.com) is a business of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC). With 2003 revenues of US$7.6 billion, Thomson (www.thomson.com) is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers.

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