Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Newspapers Online & Ebsco A-Z: So Much for Microfilm, Microfiche, and Piles & Piles of Paper!



Great practice using these databases!


Searching for my own hometown I whittled down the original 501,041 articles to a realistic set of 361 hits which ranged in date from 1999-2009. Lead paragraph helped some (27,192 results), but I found the Best Matches limiter to be the real ticket.


Searching for someone with local fame, I decided to use the owner of my favorite Colorado bookstore. Results numbered 664, but when I selected Colorado from the sidebar of location results, that number dropped to 444. It was fun reading through the history, some of which I knew and some of which was new to me. Although I had hoped to find some articles from 1985 or 1986, the dates ranged from 1989-2009. Not all papers go back far enough for us "older folks"...


I also decided to check out brethren fame and was happy to come across some articles by and about my very own brother! Name search resulted in 82 hits, but limiting it by the appropriate state I found 3 articles from between 1986-2005--fun to read and remember!


All in all, the limits do wonders in pinpointing the info one is truly looking for, and Newspapers Online, Custom Newspapers, & Ebsco A-Z offer a great time-saving service!

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