Paul Christy, Assistant Director of STAT-USA, presented a training session at the Bobst Library of New York University in October. The new National Trade Data Bank CD-ROM (NTDB), to be issued in January, takes advantage of the Windows environment. The disk is in 32-bit architecture for Windows 95, but installing the disk in Windows 3.1 will automatically install a translator.

Four types of searches are now available. Basic provides unstructured searching across all the indexes in the entire database . It allows you to limit a search as a phrase. The Structured search helps put together a Boolean search of all indexes. Free Form constructs a search from your natural language. Browse By Program is a file manager overview which treats every program as a folder. The FILE command gives the save and print possibilities. Files need to be saved individually and cannot be appended to each other. Paul suggests using the Print Preview command and then zooming to be able to read some documents better on the screen. The F1 key offers extensive help on line. STAT-USA is leaving the printed manual to Bernan to produce.

Other interesting bits of information from the presentation: The March disks have the January-December trade statistics. The rest of the documents roll off as the disk fills. The goal now is to have the CD be a once a month "snapshot" of the Internet version (http://www.stat-usa.gov/stat-usa.html), however the NTDB may have more information online than on-disc. STAT-USA does not work in the Lynx environment. Non-depository libraries pay $150 per year for one user. Site licenses allow entrance from your domain without passwords. STAT-USA is getting a hit a second at this point.