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 100 CD-ROM PROFESSIONAL NOVEMBER 1991 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 > NOVEMBER 1991 CD-ROM PROFESSIONAL 101 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.