If you're a Dialog searcher, you may be losing money every time you go online if you haven't read Mary Ellen Bates' article, "Dialog Pricing Redux: Déjà Vu All Over Again" (http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar02/bates.htm). The article is scheduled to appear as the cover story in the March 2002 issue of Searcher magazine, but we've brought it online in advance of the print publication as a service to readers. Using test search scenarios developed before the DialUnit era—tests that Bates has used since in articles investigating searcher suspicions and that Dialog staff used in tweaking their final pricing—Bates establishes just when DialUnit pricing benefits the searcher (almost never) and when connect-time saves searchers money (almost always).

Read it or weep.