SIFT service moving to Reference.COM

[Hector Garcia-Molina <hector@DB.Stanford.EDU>]

Dear SIFT Subscriber:

Stanford University is pleased to announce a new partnership with
InReference, Inc. which will significantly enhance your service.

Under the terms of the agreement, Stanford is transferring the SIFT
service to InReference.  InReference will make the SIFT functionality
available through its Reference.COM service (http://www.reference.com/).
To minimize the disruption in your service, your queries will be
automatically migrated to Reference.COM.  The service will remain
free of charge.

We believe InReference is an excellent home for SIFT.  The Company has
the infrastructure and support necessary to provide you with a high
quality service.  In addition, InReference has added many interesting
new features to the service:

* More Content

  - 6+ month archive of more than 13,000 news-groups.
  - The Internet's largest archive of publicly-accessible mailing
    lists (soon to exceed 1,000).

* Advanced Search Capabilities

  - Powerful filtering: Interactively refine your search using
    message header fields such as author, organization,
    conversational thread, newsgroup/e-mail list.
  - Query Templates: Identifying and entering the right newsgroups
    and mailing lists to search can be tedious.  InReference has
    formulated a few query templates which pre-select the right
    newsgroups and lists for a particular topic.

* Web and E-mail Accessible

  - Submit queries and receive results via e-mail or at the
    Reference.COM web site.

You will receive a welcome notification from InReference in June,
along with an (initial) username and password.  In most cases, this
should be identical to your existing SIFT username/password.

Thank you for your ongoing interest in SIFT.

Sincerely,

Tak Yan, SIFT Architect
Hector Garcia-Molina, Principal Investigator, Digital Library Project
Department of Computer Science
Stanford University


Q: Who is InReference?
A: InReference is a startup located in the NASA Ames Technology
   Commercialization Center in Silicon Valley.  InReference has
   strategic partnerships with a number of well-known companies.
   These partnerships help provide the infrastructure to supply you
   with a first rate service:  database technology from Oracle, search
   engines from Verity, servers from Sun, high speed Internet access
   from Pacific Bell, and high speed RAID storage from Storage Computer.

   InReference also has a great team of programmers dedicated to
   providing a quality service.  Our technical team includes Eric
   Allman, the creator/developer of sendmail and Professor Hector
   Garcia-Molina, Principal Investigator of the Digital Library
   Project at Stanford University.

Q: How will people access the Reference.COM service?
A: Queries can be submitted and the results retrieved via the web
   (http://www.reference.com) or by e-mail.  See their web page
   for details.

Q: If it's free of charge, how does InReference pay for the service?
A: Through the generosity of strategic partners, and advertising.

Q: Is InReference's query syntax the same as SIFT's?
A: No.  To provide additional functionality, InReference has
   extended and changed the SIFT query syntax.  Send e-mail to
   info@reference.com if you have further questions.

Q: How do I discontinue my service?
A: There is syntax to support an array of account management activities,
   including account termination.