John Rylands University Library: Research Skills Training

Finding news: a guide

Introduction

The term News refers to any new information on current events, which is presented (or reported) to a third party audience. News reports or updates can be communicated in a number of different ways; printed, broadcast, internet, word of mouth etc.

The John Rylands University Library (JRUL) provides you with access to a range of news sources both current and historic, which can help you in your research. News sources can provide:

Detailed perspectives on issues, events and well known figures Regional, national & international perspectives on events A way to place events and issues in a social and cultural context

Key benefits of historical news items

Often the only source with first hand accounts Unique, making difficult to access information accessible and convenient

Key benefits of recent and breaking news

Follow events as they unfold and shape history Timeliness and relevance of news articles is unrivalled by other information

sources

News formats available at JRUL

Historical news sources are the collections of newspapers – these are increasingly being made available in electronic format, and can be accessed on or off campus.

In addition there are collections of other more current news media such as broadcasts, trade & general interest magazines, and internet sources available through a news database which packages together current & historical news items from various sources, which can then be searched according to specific criteria.

Accessing historical news

There are many electronic newspaper collections to search through

From http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/ On this front page, under Search Resources, click on Databases A to Z

You can now search alphabetically for the following newspapers or collections:

Corriere Della Sera 1992-1996 (in Italian) Guardian (1821-2003) and Observer (1791-2003) Guardian/Observer Archive (1998-) Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers Times Digital Archive 1785-1985 Times Literary Supplement Archive (1994-) Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive (1902-1985) UKPressOnline (Daily Mirror Archive, 1903-) Universal Database of Russian Newspapers (1802-) NEW! Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006

e.g. Look for articles about “Jack the Ripper” written at the time of the events (1880s-1890s)

First of all select an appropriate database – in this case Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers

You can use the phrase “Jack the Ripper” as a keyword; but you can try related terms such as “Whitechapel murders” or “Whitechapel AND murder”

Enter a date range for your search e.g. April 1888 – February 1891 Run the search Click on the titles of search results to view the articles in their original format

Accessing current and historical news

Current and some archived news can often be accessed directly through individual newspaper & broadcaster websites.

However the Library provides access to news database services, such Factiva, which contains news items from a variety of media, including key international newspapers, industries/trade press, magazines and news wires as well as providing additional content on market and companies data. Factiva is an easy way to search across a wide variety of news sources.

Factiva

Factiva is a news database which accesses over 28,000 sources of international news and publications. Articles can date back as far as 1980 (varies according to publication) and are available in 23 languages. Information sources available include:

Updated newswires from major global providers such as Reuters Full text articles from major national and regional newspapers such as

(Including the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Financial Times etc). Articles from major news and business publications (e.g. The Economist,

Business Week, Fortune etc). Articles and features from a variety of trade magazines, covering industrial

sectors such as aviation, banking, energy etc. Articles from general interest magazines like Vanity Fair, Time and Vogue.

When should I use Factiva?

To search for local, national or international news stories by selecting a particular date you are interested in.

To search for stories from a specific news source e.g. The Guardian. Search for stories published in 23 different languages. To browse the latest headlines from a selected country’s newspapers. To search for news stories by a subject (e.g. Environment / Health) or

industry (e.g. airlines) - Factiva has over 600 different subject terms to help you identify the relevant area

To set up an alerting service that will continuously scan the database for news stories matching your interests.

How to access Factiva

From www.manchester.ac.uk/library On this front page, under Search Resources, click on Databases A to Z Select F and then Factiva from the alphabetic list of databases On the Factiva launch page, click on the Special username required link Click on the link to Special usernames & passwords Click on the Databases link This will take you to an A-Z listing of usernames/passwords for selected

databases N.B. This page is itself password protected – Your Central username and password provides access to the A-Z list of passwords

Scroll down the page to find the Factiva username and password, note it and Return to the Factiva launch page and this time click on Factiva link to log in.

Searching the database and search examples

Free text searching can either be done independently or combined with Factiva’s Intelligent Indexing system - that is, using the headings on the front page such as Source, Company, Subject etc. to focus your search. Use the free text box to enter search terms or phrases. You can use Boolean operators here if you know how and prefer to do so.

Search 1: Find a specific newspaper article:e.g. Find an article from the The Times called Stampede by banks to beat bonus crackdown, published on 06/02/2009

Enter a keyword (e.g. stampede) from the article title, into the Free text search box

Use the Enter date range… option, and select 06/02/2009 Click on the Source option within the Intelligent Indexing options. Type “the

times” into the search box – Select the option Publication: The Times (London)

Click on Run Search to locate the article. Click on the article title to view. Download options will appear at the top of

the screen.

Search 2: Search for news articles on issues, events or people, published in a specific newspaper:e.g. Search for articles making reference to Barack Obama, that have been published in the New York Times during the last 3 months

Enter Barack Obama as keywords in the free text box Open the Date drop down menu and select In the last 3 months Click on Source from the Select Sources and Factiva Intelligent Indexing area Select Publications by Type Type “New York Times” in the search box marked “Find a Source” Click on Publication: The New York Times from the Source Results – It will

now appear as a selected source in pink font above the search box Run the search

Search 3: Getting more from a free text search – Improve your searching with search limiters and intelligent indexinge.g. Search for articles on the credit crunch

Enter the search terms “credit crunch” into the Free Text search box at the top of the screen.

You can now click Run Search to begin searching – however as the database contains articles from so many sources you may get huge search results which need to be managed:

Using limiters to reduce search results

There are 2 main ways to limit the amount of results you receive (other than using the Intelligent Indexing options)

Use the Date drop down menu to select from In the last week, In the last month.. etc.

Use the options available under the Search for free text terms in… menu. You can limit the search to only identify your search terms within the Title of the article itself, or Title & Lead Paragraph etc.

You can also try Boolean searching and a number of other search techniques within the Free Text search boxA useful technique can be to limit your results to articles over a certain number of words in length - This will eliminate a lot of shorter articles, which may have been of limited use:

Make sure that the search is set to Full Text (Select from the Search for free text terms in…menu)

Then you can add in and wc>5000 to the search term i.e. “credit crunch and wc>5000”

The search will now only return articles that are 5000+ words in length

Make results more relevant …

The options available within the Intelligent Indexing enable you to focus your search, and with luck improve results. Select from the following options:

Source: Allows you to limit the search to a publication/s e.g. Type the publication name, such as Financial Times into the Box marked Find a Source. Alternatively, use the Select Source Category options to limit the search to publications, which are focused on a particular industry or region.

Company: Use the company field to limit your search to articles which mention a particular company e.g. Microsoft – This allows you to see how the credit crunch is affecting various companies

Subject: There are lots of subject categories to choose from Industry: Similar to the above, select an industrial field from a wide choice Region: You can limit the search to focus on a particular country or region,

such as the UK or European Union countries. Language: Limit your search results to articles written in English, Chinese etc.

Search 4: Browsing Newspaper Headlinese.g. Browse the latest headlines from the US media

The News Pages feature include access to articles from up to 10 major sources for the selected region, plus market indexes, editor’s links and Web Resources. 18 locations are covered including US, UK and South-East Asia.

From the green tool bar at the top of the screen, select News Pages Select United States from the drop down menu in the top left corner of the

screen Latest headline stories from Wall St. Journal, New York Times etc will be

displayed You can display other information (e.g. Companies and Markets) by using the

drop down menu to the right of the publication title – you can also adjust the date here - the last 14 days can be browsed.

Search 5: Locating articles from general interest / specialist publicationsFactiva provides access to a wide range of general interest / specialist publications e.g. The Economist, New Scientist, Time, Vanity Fair etc. Use the Source box to find a publication to add to your search.

If you know the title of the publication (e.g. Vanity Fair), type this into the Find a Source box, then click on the title when it appears in the Source Results

Or, browse publications by using the options available from the Select a Source category. Use these options to select publications by industry, region etc. (Select Type for general interest publications)

e.g. Search for articles on safety within Airline trade & industry magazines

Type Safety into the free text search box and click on Source Use the drop down menu next to Select Source Category – Select

Publications by Industry Click on Airlines and Run Search Change the results display to Relevance to display most relevant stories first

Search 6: Locating articles in different languagesThe Language option allows you to choose which language/s you want to include in your results. e.g. Search for articles written in English, German or French published in the last 6 months, on new products offered by Vodafone and T MobileYou can run this search simply by setting your dates and using the intelligent indexing options.

Select In the last 6 months from the Date drop down menu Open the Company drop down menu from within Select Sources and Factiva

Intelligent Indexing Type Vodafone into the search box and click on the search button to the

right

Click Vodafone Group PLC, it will now appear as a selected company in pink font above the search box

Repeat for T Mobile, and add to the Currently Selected list Open the Subject drop down menu from within Select Sources and Factiva

Intelligent Indexing Expand the Corporate / Industrial News section by clicking the + sign Click New Products / Services once – it will now appear as a selected subject

in pink font above the search box. Click on the Language section – Select English, French & German from the list Run the Search

Viewing and Saving Search Results

The Search Results screen shows articles relevant to your search on the left hand side of the screen. From here you can:

Display a single articleClick on the article headline and the full text will appear on the right hand side of the screen

View more than one articleUse the checkboxes to the right of the title to mark any articles that interest you. Click on the Eye (View Selected) icon to display all the marked articles on the right hand side of the screen

Download an article/s Use the checkbox/es to highlight the selected article. Then simply select

the RTF icon. Choose Open to display the article(s) in MS Word Format. Select Save As to download the article(s). Choose from either rich text format (.rtf) or a word document (.doc)

Email / Print articles Use the check boxes as above then select either the printer icon to print

the article out, or select the envelope icon to email the article/s to your account. N.B. You cannot Email more than 100 articles at once.

More help needed?

Guides provided by Factiva – links are on the Factiva login page (click on F):http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/databases/f/

Check sources at http://factiva.com/sources

One to one assistance is available from your Library staff:Main Library: Blue Ground Information Desk X53751MBS Library Service: libdesk@mbs.ac.uk x56507