SilverPlatter Information, Inc. was one of the first companies to produce commercial reference databases on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

s. It was founded in 1983 in the United Kingdom by

Béla Hatvany Béla Hatvany is a pioneer in the automation of libraries and the information industry. Companies founded by him have been responsible for the first Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), the first CD-ROMs, the first networked CD-ROM, the first cli ...

and Walt Winshall with the explicit intention of using CD technology to publish data, and thus provide an alternative to searching databases in

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...

format. Ron Rietdyk was the company's first President. The firm was started in 1986 from a small building in Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts. The company began experimenting with four databases:

ERIC The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

LISA Lisa or LISA may refer to: People People with the mononym * Lisa Lisa (born 1967), American actress and lead singer of the Cult Jam * Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA", Japanese singer and producer * Lisa Komine (born 1978), J ...

PsycLIT PsycLIT was a CD-ROM version of ''Psychological Abstracts''. It was merged into the PsycINFO online database in 2000. PsycLIT contained citations and abstracts to journal articles, and summaries of English-language chapters and books in psychology ...

, and EMBASE. In 1987 the company had 12 databases and revenues of approximately $6m. Competing with CD Plus (now

Ovid Technologies Ovid Technologies, Inc. (or just Ovid for short), part of the Wolters Kluwer group of companies, provides access to online bibliographic databases, academic journals, and other products, chiefly in the area of health sciences. The National Librar ...

), Aries,

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts CSA (formerly ''Cambridge Scientific Abstracts'') was a division of Cambridge Information Group and provider of online databases, based in Bethesda, Maryland before merging with ProQuest of Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2007. CSA hosted databases of ab ...

and

Dialog Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008. Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...

, the company offered libraries a wide range of CD-ROMs. Over the next few years the company expanded from its academic base into medical, business and health and safety CD publishing. In 1989 the firm launched MultiPlatter, a system for networking CD-ROMs across

local area networks A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

. In 1991, it introduced searching the data held at the company's site by ERL (the

electronic reference library Electronic Reference Library (ERL) is a client to server approach to networking CD-ROM and magnetic databases by SilverPlatter. It enables access from Mac and UNIX machines. At present, there are only UNIX clients for workstations running Solar ...

), a system for providing hard disk access to its databases via the DXP protocol. This last proved successful with more than 500 sites using the firm's technology by 1997. In that year the company had grown to $75m in revenues and had over 250 databases. In 2001, SilverPlatter was sold to

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a ...

at a reputed price of $113m, and now forms part of

, the

subsidiary.

References

External links

The SilverPlatter Platform
at Ovid
Ovid company history
with information on merger with SilverPlatter

Home of the new OvidSP site
Publishing companies of the United States Educational publishing companies Publishing companies established in 1983 Database companies 1983 establishments in the United Kingdom 1986 establishments in Massachusetts

References

Further reading

External links