Personal Library Software Breaks Cost Barrier for Electronic Publishing
With New Release of PLWeb Search Engine Shipped via Internet

(WASHINGTON, May 15) - Personal Library Software Inc., which provides the
leading-edge search engine that powers major online information systems,
today began distributing the engine directly via the Internet, driving the
cost of such high-end technology to new lows.

"We will make it easy for anyone to be an electronic publisher, and to do
it with the most advanced, commercial-quality software available" said PLS
President Matthew Koll. "Now any organization, large or small, can afford
to publish volumes of information on the World Wide Web. Just as
important, users will be able to find it."

The new, enhanced release of the PLS search system, known as PLWeb(, can be
ordered and shipped electronically to customers who want to establish
their own World Wide Web presence. Using a WWW browser such as Mosaic,
they can obtain the PLS software directly over the Internet for a free
45-day trial by connecting to www.pls.com and following the simple
directions.

The price of PLWeb is only $4,995, less than 40 percent of what such
sophisticated search-server software cost just six months ago. Employing
the Internet itself as a low-cost distribution channel allows PLS to set
an aggressive new standard for price-performance, according to Koll.

Independent industry analysts reacted favorably to the PLS strategy for
distribution and pricing. "The target audience for these products are the
people who are on the Web. It's the perfect way to reach them," commented
Paul J. Dravis of J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., who recently published a
report on the growing Web publishing industry. "It's good that PLS is
dropping the price down, because that will encourage people to experiment.
The way you're going to get the volumes going, especially in this kind of
a market, is to get the price down."

PLWeb includes the same capabilities for "natural language" text retrieval
and intuitive concept searching that is licensed from PLS by major
information companies such as DataTimes, Knight-Ridder Information and
Time Inc.

The new release of PLWeb also incorporates validation of database
subscribers when they log on, as well as a log to track detailed usage,
giving publishers a complete commercial solution. Users can be charged on
a subscription basis, or by the value of specific information they
retrieve. The PLSengine can be used with the most popular WWW server
software, including those from CERN, NCSA, Netscape Communications
Corporation and Open Market Inc.

PLWeb's new release can be used to search across multiple databases
anywhere on the Internet, opening a whole new dimension in cyberspace that
can link users to many electronically published sources at once. This
capability, called the Distributed Database Model, offers powerful synergy
to both existing and new electronic publishers who adopt the PLS
technology.

Koll cited three major advantages of the Distributed Database Model:

- Publisher control of "look-and-feel," pricing, and editorial
  policies.
- Seamless full-text searching across local and remote PLWeb servers.
- Database groups that provide unique, personalized views of
  information.

PLWeb's tools can even index documents on a remote WWW site that is not
running a copy of the PLS software, Koll said. PLWeb supports the Web's
HTML format as well as Adobe Acrobat documents.

Some well-known publishers already using of PLS software for their Web
sites include Time Inc., which uses the search engine for its Pathfinder
service (www.pathfinder.com), the U.S. House of Representatives
(www.house.gov) and Knight-Ridder Information (www.dialog.com).

In addition to publishers' databases, other customer applications of PLWeb
include internal or external distribution of documents, fully searchable,
by organizations that need such capability for their own, self-defined
missions. The Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, Calif., uses the PLS
engine for Access HP (www.hp.com), an electronic marketing system that
reaches its employees, customers, distributors and solutions-providers
worldwide.

Along with DataTimes, Knight Ridder and Time Inc., other information
companies who use the PLS search engine include America Online, Prodigy,
NewsNet, Telebase, Congressional Quarterly, Grolier and Financial Times
Information Services.

PLS can be reached at its headquarters at 2400 Research Blvd., Rockville,
MD 20850, (301) 990-1155,its European office at Heidepad 2, 6584 CX
Molenhoek, The Netherlands 31-805-86-300, and its Santa Clara, CA, office
at 5201 Great America Pkwy, Suite 320, Santa Clara, CA 95054-1140, (408)
982-2590. Access to PLS Inc. via the Internet is available via
http://www.pls.com or info@pls.com.

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