Newspapers on Disc: A Survey and Critique of Metropolitan Daily Newspapers on CD-ROM Stover, Mark CD-ROM Professional; Nov 1991; 4, 6; ABI/INFORM Complete pg. 100
Newspapers On Disc: A Survey And Critique Of Metropolitan Daily Newspapers On CD-ROM by Mark Stover
'rint newspapers have played a Online newspapers are a great boon to documentation for the software was ·major part in the information librarians and other researchers. They complete and accurate. Since the P dissemination process almost provide immediate access to the full newspapers available from Dialog on since their inception 500 years ago. texts of newspapers, they are generally CD-ROM are also available online, Metropolitan daily newspapers well-indexed and they are current users with modems and Dialog provide current information on a wide (usually these databases are updated on accounts are given the option of dial variety of topics and can be purchased a daily basis). Two important access to these databases via at a price that almost anyone can drawbacks to these resources are their DIALOGLINK Cqmmunications afford. National and international high costs and the necessity of using Manager software. news, local events, regional coverage, intermediaries to perform searches. DIALOG onDisc allows users to sports (at all levels), humor, food, A word should be said here about access the Los Angeles Times through an business, travel, obituaries, opinion indexing and abstracting services for easy-to-use menu system as well as and the arts all receive varying degrees newspapers. These tools, available in through the traditional DIALOG of attention in a newspaper. In short, print, microfilm, CD-ROM and online command line that most online newspapers provide their readers with formats, are often efficient and cost searchers are familiar with. The menu a vast array of information resources, effective ways of searching for driven option and the command-driven the breadth of which cannot be information found in newspapers. option are actually interactive with each matched by any other medium. However, abstracts and indexes are not other, so that the user can utilize some The latest trend in CD-ROM sufficient if instant access to the full text of the menu options while working publishing is full-text access and of the newspaper is required. within the command environment. newspapers have begun to show up in The year 1991 saw the sudden The Los Angeles Times onDisc this format. This article will survey appearance of at least four different indexes several different fields within the various newspapers now available companies publishing full-text each record, including subject headings, on CD- ROM and will discuss the newspapers on CD-ROM. Although publication date, edition, section positive and negative implications of the trend is clearly toward major heading, headline, byline, dateline, lead this new phenomenon. metropolitan daily newspapers, CD paragraph, length of record, part ROM versions of national newspapers number, page number, caption, article ELECTRONIC NEWSPAPERS like the Wall Street Journal and the type and graphic type. All information Online versions of newspapers first Christian Science Monitor have also from the print version is replicated in became available in the mid-1970s. begun to proliferate. Smaller, regional the CD-ROM version except classified Today, there are well over 100 newspapers will probably also be ads and other advertisements. electronic newspapers that can be affected, as evidenced by the appear Because of the magnitude of infor searched full-text. Most newspaper ance of a CD-ROM edition of the mation, only six months of text is libraries have an electronic version of Northern Echo, a regional morning included on each disc (as compared to their parent newspaper available in newspaper in the United Kingdom. If one year of text per disc on all of the house, but more and more metropo this trend continues, CD-ROM will other products reviewed here). litan newspapers are becoming soon become an established medium The search engine utilized for the accessible online through companies for newspaper publishing. Los Angeles Times onDisc is very like Dialog, Nexis and Vu-Text. effective because it can be used by The latest trend in research libraries DATABASE EVALUATIONS everyone from the neophyte searcher is locally mounted commercial to the expert searcher. The menu databases (such as the Chronicle of Dialog's The Los Angeles Times option has a rather short learning Higher Education project at the Dialog Information Services offers curve, while the command option University of Southern California) and the full text of the Los Angeles Times on allows for powerful and sophisticated this may soon extend to mounting a CD-ROM, as well as other newspapers searches (including Boolean, nested, machine-readable version of the local including the San Jose Mercury News proximity and truncated searches). metropolitan daily on the campus and the Boston Globe. The installation of There is no tutorial available, but the networks of the larger research the retrieval software (DIALOG onDisc help screens are somewhat useful. universities. Manager) was quite simple and the Response time is very fast and
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. downloading of articles is available. (e.g., searching for "highway" will Chadwyck-Healey's The Times and The Los Angeles Times onDisc from also find "highways," and vice versa). The Sunday Times Dialog gives users a popular and There are excellent, context-sensitive London's premier daily newspaper, critically acclaimed newspaper from help screens, as well as a useful the Times and its sister paper, the the second largest city in North tutorial. My only complaint with Sunday Times, are now available America, accessed by powerful soft ProQuest is that its opening batch file through Chadwyck-Healey (North ware produced by one of the industry sequence takes much too long (about American distributor) on CD-ROM. leaders in electronic databases. 30 seconds). They have also announced a CD-ROM Anyone interested in news from The Washington Post Ondisc is version of another UK newspaper, the California, Pacific Rim economics and indexed by a number of different Guardian, to be released in the near practically anything else should access points, including text, future. Installation of this system was consider subscribing to this product. headline, number, byline, source, extremely simple, since the software date, section, abstract, subject, name, runs off the CD-ROM disc and is never UMI's The Washington Post company, type, length and copied onto the computer's hard disk. UMI offers The Washington Post illustration type. It covers all articles The user guide is short (24 pages) but Ondisc, as well as other CD- ROM from this newspaper except wire complete. newspapers like the Chicago Tribune, service stories and stock pages. The retrieval software, developed by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Searches can be qualified by field the Open University, is completely Atlanta Constitution/Journal. The name and search sets can be reused menu-driven. It is easy to use yet fairly installation process was fairly easy (e.g., "search #1 AND search #2"). powerful, with truncation, Boolean and and the documentation was complete. Relevant records can be marked and qualification features. The help screens UMI's retrieval software, ProQuest, later printed out or saved to disc. are useful, but there is no tutorial. is well-known by users of Response time is usually adequate, Response time is relatively good and Dissertation Abstracts Ondisc or any but not as fast as the other systems downloading of articles is possible. of the other UMI CD-ROM databases. reviewed here. Printing and All information originally appearing ProQuest is a menu-based program, downloading of records is easily in the Times and the Sunday Times is although Boolean and proximity accomplished. reproduced here, including domestic operators must be keyed in UMI's Washington Post Ondisc news, foreign news, business, sports, separately. The software is fairly easy combines one of the nation's most letters to the editor, obituaries, law to use, although its more respected daily newspapers with a reports and feature articles. Only sophisticated techniques are more proven search-and-retrieval system. information restricted for legal or difficult to learn. ProQuest allows It is an excellent choice especially for copyright reasons is omitted. Indexed truncation, but it also provides auto those who are interested in political fields include text, date, section, head matic truncation for some keywords and legislative news. line and byline.
NEWSPAPERS ONC~R()M . ' PRODUCT: ·.: ··_PRQDUCJ: PROI)I)Cr: . UMI's nltF~~nPost ~ok:-Heiilley's NewsBank's The T1rt1e$ and The ~tQn Globe . , -, .. ,.. 1TtQ sundaiTimes. . Price: =fQr~t·mt~;~ ·Price:··· B~tw9® $1395 per year ouJI'f#nt ¥tat ptuSone ¥ea.t $1tv~ per year. and $11;50 ~year, , · depending on tme of library and · ·· · · .9f updates; ~~~~~·· ·~·Wo~~~~- Quarlerl····..... Y. . all a!'EI $1095 tJQ®to Ptryear· Update$; Mo.hthly··
.PrGducer: News~ ~Pine Street · ·New~. eTOSS4o· soon02~:t82 ·· 8021875-2397
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Times and the Sunday Times on proximity operator (users can search was a quirk in searching the index. CD-ROM is a fascinating product for for two terms within the same Pressing the FS key pulls up a window those of us on the other side of the sentence). The software is menu on the right side of the screen with a Atlantic. It will be especially useful driven, although the Boolean and list of every word indexed in the for those interested in news from the proximity operators can be keyed in database, allowing the user to browse United Kingdom and economic directly. The system is fairly easy to through the index and choose selected developments in Europe. learn and use, although the help terms. However, before one can type screens could be improved. The in a word, one must first backspace one NewsBank's The Boston Globe response time is good, but unfortu character, which is somewhat NewsBank has announced a new nately downloading is not available. distracting. NewsBank has assured me product called CD News, which Fields that are indexed in the Boston that all of these problems are bugs in places the full text of major city Globe include text, headline, lead the software and will be fixed in the newspapers, including the San paragraph, keywords, date, section next version released. Despite the Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento and author I source. existence of these problems, the Boston Bee, on CD-ROM. For this review, I I encountered several obstacles in Globe on CD-ROM from NewsBank is examined the Boston Globe. searching NewsBank's Boston Globe. a viable option for those considering Although I experienced some pro One problem was that search terms CD- ROM newspapers. Potential blems with the installation process, it were not always highlighted in the subscribers in the New England area was not terribly difficult or cumber text, especially after Boolean and fans of the Boston Celtics will be some. Presently, only a preliminary searches. A second puzzling feature especially interested in this database. manual is available, but NewsBank of this database was the fact that a promises that in the near future more few records only included a headline SUMMARY complete documentation will be sent and the text of the article, omitting While no one product stands head to subscribers. the author, the date and the section of and shoulders above the rest in this The retrieval software provides for the paper. review, my personal favorite is Boolean searching, truncation and one A final problem that I experienced Dialog's Los Angeles Times. Its Newspaper CD-R OMs text of the newspaper's articles. This excludes two importaJlt parts of the original priJlted paper: images and Tell The Full StQry certain kinds of non--article text. Photographs and.other graphics, such as line drawings, by Mick O'Leaty illustrations, t:naps and tables, which are not convertible to ASCH. are, of course, omitted. Textual material that is both Newspapers are the latest publication type to appear on e~meral and not related to a story, including advertisiJ:lg CD-ROM Papers that are currently or prospe<:tivdy and ta~ material like stock quotes, sports box scores and available in full text include leading national titles like the calendars, is also excluded. New York Tunes, WaH Street Journal, Christian 5t:ience Mmitor These ~es are exactly those which apply the online and USA Today as well as majorurbandaiij~ ~.the. vers~ns of*hese papers. ~co-ROM$ are produced from Washington Post, ws Angeles Times, Chicago TrilJUne, New York the online newspaper database with no changes. Online Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphitllnquirer and the newspaper searchers wiD be happy to know that they are l.ontkm 1imes. CD-ROM is the fourth mediumft:>r ~ dealillg with ~y the same content when. they move to newspapers, which are also available in print, ~lprm the CD" ROM version. andonline. · Having~ important publications on Cl),.RQM is vnt11JAL.nrtL-nx.T welcome, but does this new distribution meditun~yet In gener~ a newspaper on CD-ROM includes every news another set of complications .about database content? .Will and f~D.lre~~~~ sectiQnofthe paper. ~few there be another set of ed~torial policies abou~ ~bat~ · · variatioJls fn>m ~·prirlciple~only the SI:nallestand ontotheCD-ROMand whatdoesnot? Hap~.t~~~ mos~.insi~sto~.• "Every" story includes not only so- is generally "No." Cl),.ROM newspaper~ wiUflndt;llat. . ~"hard"~.~ the ~t sectlOJ\t but alsoiVerything their 1~ curve is merclfuUY short •Editorial po~ fromspqrts, ~,.lifestyle and other section$. In from one publisher to another aresurprisingly.~istent. the case of theN~ J't»"kT.i~,for ~ple, this includes the They are also very inclusive~ with virtually a11Qf the wxt• fo\Jr~~~forNew"~L<>ngi~ from the paper ap~on the CD-ROM West~anciC~t,ac«>rditlgtof1lll Patterson, ~of~.Operations. ~Wan $tJ!eet:Joumai.cp,. NOT A FACSIMILE ROM, .xpla,insPa~ RQdeawald, Associate Director of . ~key ~tin ~mparingnewspaperson Cl),.ROM Busii'JeSS .. · .. .~ludes a11 ~ storil\lS frozJl the with the actual print paper is that "full-text" does not equal four .l)aJ. ..IJS of the ]QUrnal. "facsimile." "Fun~text" in £aq tneaJU~ "full ASCn text," w the When th•are several similar versions of the same story,
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. flexibility, ease of use and power make Newspapers on CD-ROM provide databases could provide this sort of it appropriate for experienced searcher users with relatively current information, which conceivably could and inexperienced end-user alike. information as they usually publish be quite valuable to researchers. information as soon as it is received. Fourth, CD-ROM newspapers give Benefits Of Newspapers Thus, CD-ROM newspapers will users a unique type of information in On CD-ROM generally be at least one year more the form of "news." News, especially One of the most important benefits current than most other databases on written from a journalistic slant and of newspapers on CD-ROM is access CD-ROM. dealt with on a daily, "as-we-see-it" to the complete text of the primary Second, CD-ROM newspapers give perspective, can be highly useful to sources. This feature sets it apart from users electronic access to local and historians, social scientists and even a most bibliographic databases which statewide news, information that would college student writing a freshman term generally require a "two-step lookup" almost never be found in traditional paper. Newspaper articles are often process to reach the indexed databases. This type of information is considered primary source materials by document. It can also relieve the extremely valuable for students and researchers because they usually frustration at not having immediate researchers especially in the social and provide eyewitness accounts and direct access to the original source. behavioral sciences and can also be quotations from active participants. Although it might seem obvious, it useful in legal and technical research. Reading a newspaper article, whether should be noted that another great Third, newspapers on CD-ROM in print, microform, or electronic advantage of CD-ROM is the ability furnish a wider view of societal issues format, is usually the "next best thing to work within the electronic than is generally found in academic to being there." environment. Free text and Boolean oriented or "scholarly" databases. For searching, date qualification and a example, the opinion section of a daily Drawbacks Of Newspapers host of other features are available metropolitan newspaper contains On CD-ROM on CD-ROM and generally make the "person-on-the-street" viewpoints in A major disappointment with the search much faster and more letters-to-the-editor and in opinion/ products reviewed in this article is that productive. editorial pieces. Very few other kinds of none of them contains the full images of
some papers may violate the letter of this law without explains that some of these stories may be omitted from the harming the principle. Rkhatd Geiger, Library ~r of print paper because of space limitations. Thus, the CD the San Francisco Chronicle, explains that redundant earlier· ROM and online Journal will have stories that the versions of a sto1'f ~·omitted in favor of the latest one. At newspaper itself does not, though Thieke adds that these New York Newsdizy, describes Director of Libraries Mary Ann artiCles are of lesser importance. Publishers generally Skinner, successive versions of a story are compared line--by prepare enhanced corrections for their online and CD-ROM line. Unique information from an earlier version is added to databases. When a correction is made, it is linked with the the Bnal., saved ven?ion. originalstory. Online and CD-ROM searchers, therefore, There are two categories of story which some p
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. newspapers on disc. Full imaging of A related question is that of the decrease subscription costs)? If an indexed document is expensive and conservation and archiving of older advertising was pursued, which space-intensive and it may be several electronic information. One of the market(s) would be targeted and how years before newspapers receive the tragedies of the print newspaper would advertisements appear on the same treatment as UMI's Business medium is its extreme fragility, but screen? Perhaps an advertisement Periodicals Ondisc full imaging prod one of the beauties of microfilm is could be attached to each record? If uct. Although CD-ROM metropolitan its durability and its ability to advertising was not chosen as a viable newspapers are more current than preserve information that was option, why not? most other databases, they are usually originally produced in a fragile It would certainly increase revenues at least one month (and sometimes up medium. for the publisher and advertisers would to three months) out of date. While Electronic newspapers on CD benefit as well. Would some users be this lack of currency will usually not be ROM must deal with analogous offended by the utilization of the a problem for most users, it stands in problems. The question of how long "pristine" CD-ROM environment for less stark contrast to the daily updates that an optical disc will last is almost a than-pure purposes? Since the CD-ROM most online newspapers offer. As with moot point since electronic pricing structure would suggest that many other electronic information information can be easily money plays a major role in this market products, most users will decide to use manipulated, refreshed and I or already, why not allow advertisers to the CD-ROM version of a newspaper transferred to another medium. A throw their hats into the ring? as the mainstay and the online version more important question is that of for the most recent information. ownership; it is almost irrelevant to Potential Users Of Newspapers Another drawback of CD-ROM ask about preservation of electronic On CD-ROM newspapers is the relatively large up information if you will not be able Many types of libraries could benefit front costs that are involved. Users to keep it in the end. from a subscription to one of the avail of these products will need to spend Libraries that subscribe to CD-ROM able CD-ROM electronic newspapers. money on a personal computer (IBM newspapers may want to consider the Newspaper libraries can use these or compatible), a printer, a CD-ROM interlibrary loan ramifications. Since products as an occasional alternative drive and a subscription to the more and more libraries are stressing to online searching, although news newspaper (usually between $1000 interlibrary cooperation as a way of paper librarians often need to search for and $2000 per year). fighting local budget cuts, it seems more up-to-date information than CD reasonable to assume that even elec ROM newspapers are able to provide. Rhetorical Questions tronic information should be made Other special libraries, such as research The realized concept of available outside the institution. think-tanks and corporate libraries, newspapers on CD-ROM makes us How would libraries share could also profit from these tools. ask several questions vis-a-vis the electronic information? Would a hard While individuals may never be whole idea of electronic serial copy be printed and then mailed (or able to afford CD-ROM newspapers, publications. One question concerns faxed), or would the information libraries and other institutions should the problem of ownership versus remain in electronic form throughout be able to support at least some of leasing. Are libraries and other the entire process, perhaps traveling these products. Future upgrades to subscribers of these products the from one library to another through newspapers on CD-ROM will hope owners or simply the temporary an electronic network? Would fully include better user interfaces, users of this information? copyright restrictions limit the compacted storage of information on Subscribers to print or microform sharing of electronic information? discs and eventually full imaging. newspapers own that information, These questions need to be addressed Online newspapers will probably but most companies that offer CD if libraries are to continue to forge continue to exist side by side with ROM newspaper subscriptions cooperative agreements even in an their optical counterparts, but require a lease agreement. electronic age. newspapers preserved on microfilm Subscribers are spending a great How do we define or categorize a may someday become obsolete, deal of money on information that CD-ROM newspaper? Do we catalog superceded by full image CD-ROM may turn out to be ephemeral. This it as a regular serial (which in fact it newspapers with better indexing, does not seem very fair and it is) or relegate it to the netherworld of faster access time and higher quality probably is not prudent for libraries "machine-readable data files"? Is it an reproducing capabilities. to spend money on valuable indexing tool or a periodical, or both? information which they will not be These are really theoretical and philo able to keep should their lease be sophical questions, but ultimately Communications to the author may be terminated. However, many they will affect the way we think and addressed to Mark Stover, Library producers of CD-ROM information talk about these electronic tools. Director, California Family Study Center, are rethinking their policies in this Should publishers of electronic 5433 Lnurel Canyon Blvd., N. Hollywood, area and the situation may change in newspapers pursue advertising as a CA 91607; 818/509-5959. Internet: the near future. source of revenue (which would [email protected]. UCLA.EDU •
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.