Author's queries: newspaper searching; Northern Light

[Richard Wiggins]

For an upcoming article in a national magazine, I am researching newspaper search engines.  Which ones work well?  Which ones need improvement?  How do they compete against/complement aggregator services like Nexis, and news-related searches on portals such as AltaVista?  What do you steer your patrons towards?  If your library houses newspaper archives, do you ever suggest to patrons to search the newspaper's index on the Web, then fetch the corresponding microform or paper issues?

For a possible upcoming article, I am researching how people used Northern Light's Web index.  Did you exploit the Custom Search Folders feature?  What are examples of searches that NL was especially good at? How will the absence of NL hamper your searching, or your patrons'?  What alternatives will you move towards?

Please send any comments to me privately, unless your comment is apropos for general discussion.

Thanks!

/rich


Richard Wiggins
Writing, Speaking, and Consulting on Internet Topics
rich at richardwiggins.com       www.richardwiggins.com