Interfax launches new SCAN database project

The Interfax Information Services Group has begun offering the SCAN (System of Comprehensive News Analysis) database. This search-and-analysis system provides access to the electronic databases of media organizations and uses hi-tech tools to search, monitor, and analyze information.

“Interfax’s clients have been able to test the system, which contains full-text versions of over 1,000 central and regional media products, since early June. Many of them have already subscribed to the new product. We began offering the new database in Moscow and Russian regions in October,” Roman Laba, Interfax Deputy General Director for IT-Projects, said.

SCAN (http://scan.interfax.ru/Main/) is another professional information and analytical product provided by Interfax. The database extends the capacity of the SPARK system (http://scan.interfax.ru/Main/)– Russia’s largest corporate information database, which contains registration, financial, and production information on Russian companies.

SCAN’s search engine enables a user to conduct a search not only by context, but also by the names of organizations and individuals. The search engine, which is based on the most advanced technologies used in searches and the analysis of text information, was developed by Interfax. On the one hand, SCAN’s user-friendly interface can be used to compose search entries as simple as the ones used on Google or Yandex. On the other hand, the system allows to compose complicated inquiries.

SCAN is the only database containing the whole archive of Interfax’s news items starting from 1989. In particular, the archive contains all news items issued by the group’s national, regional, and sector agencies.

One of the advantages of the new system is that it is compatible with other Interfax information products. “Now, we can offer our clients the full range of current and archival information through a single route that unites the system used to deliver Interfax news products, the SPARK and the SCAN databases,” Laba said.

***Interfax Information Services Group Mprovides news and other information services essential for decision makers in politics and business. The group, which was founded in 1989, incorporates over 30 companies, including a network of national, regional and sector-related news agencies active in Russia, other CIS member-nations, China and Central and Eastern Europe. The companies and divisions that are members of the Interfax Group provide news, analytical services, market data, fundamental information, and program solutions.

Since the start of the 1990s, Interfax has been the main source of current news on Russia and the rest of the Commonwealth of Independent States for the international community. It is the most frequently quoted source in foreign media reports from this part of the world and is one of the world‘s most often-used sources of current news.

Interfax Group began a program designed to set up regional news agencies in all of Russia’s Federal Districts in 2002. Within the following two years, Interfax opened news agencies in the Urals, Southern, Volga, Northwestern, Siberian, and Central Federal Districts (Interfax-Urals, Interfax-South, Interfax-Volga, Interfax-Northwest, Interfax-Siberia, and Interfax-Center).