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News Librarians' Success Stories |
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Presented by Barbara P. Semonche semonch@metalab.unc.edu The Park Library University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.A. [Introductory remarks: acknowledge the gracious invitation of Aase Andreson and her arrangements for the generous support of my trip here to Copenhagen. She is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic contributor to NewsLib. It is a genuine pleasure to meet and an honor to greet our colleagues from Denmark. I'd like to introduce my husband, Prof. John Semonche, who is here today. He is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Budapest, Hungary. He is also a professor of history, a legal scholar, a published author, a playwright, and a wizard with multimedia instructional programs.] Some of you here today may know that I've been in Budapest for nearly 4 months working at the Freedom Forum's Center for Independent Journalism. I'll be there until June 1. During that time I've met an extraordinary group of Hungarian media archivists or press informatics as some of them prefer to be called, in a series of four workshops I conducted at the Center. In addition, I've toured six of their archives and marveled at their accomplishments and dedication. Included were visits to two newspapers, a sports tabloid, a municipal library, the Magyar Radio archives, the Hungarian news agency (MTI) and a film archives. Also, I've just returned from a trip to the Netherlands where I've had an opportunity to visit with Dutch media archivists. My tour through 7 of their archives left me genuinely impressed with their professional skills and commitment. I'm building a web page of my experiences in Amsterdam, Hilversum, and the Hague (with photos) and will let you know the URL when it is completed. You can count on me to build a web page for my adventures here in Copenhagen. I must alert you that when I return home to North Carolina, I will be asked many questions about my visits here in Europe. Some of the questions I can anticipate. You might be interested in what they will ask me. Here is a preview of my prepared responses: Question #1: "Have you learned to speak Hungarian, Dutch or Danish?" Answer: "Alas, no. But I'm getting a sample of my Hungarian interpreter's voice on tape. As for my experiences in the Netherlands and Denmark, I've discovered that they not only speak excellent English, but German, French, and probably several other languages as well. No interpreter required." Question #2: "What did I miss most during my 4 months abroad?" Answer: "Besides my family, my faculty, my library staff, and my computer with T-1 line? Well, what I missed most was getting my daily newspaper delivered to my house before breakfast, listening to National Public Radio's Morning Edition while dressing for work, and watching the evening TV news. As you can see, I'm a serious "news junkie." Permit me now to give you a preview, a sort of "virtual tour" of news research in the States. I begin with a definition of the power of the press and then proceed with some examples of news librarian success stories.
That is a glowing verbal portrait of news libraries and one that I like to return to as a source of inspiration. Today, news librarians live and breathe with all kinds of data, facts, misrepresentations, and errors that may be indistinguishable from what is true, accurate, and honest. Consequently, our mission is much more than simply gathering, storing and retrieving information. We are more than guardians of media archives. We believe that we are responsible for the accuracy, quality and provenance of information. We do this because we know can; we are trained to do it, even though it is difficult and sometimes, perhaps, impossible. We do this because we are building more than a warehouse of factoids, we are creating a reliable, credible knowledge base. Thus, in my view, we are the true "connoisseurs of information." A fine example of this trend toward the emergence of "investigative supper searchers is the Book: Super Searchers in the News: The Online Secrets of Journalists and News Researchers, by Paula J. Hane. Published by CyberAge Books, 2000. Price is $24.95 U.S. Here are examples of news librarians progressing toward greater, more sophisticated research levels, beyond "ready reference" and quick "fact checking." They come to media research with computer skills, database management capability, polling experience, statistical knowledge, and spreadsheet expertise. They are also skilled at uncovering and utilizing public documents. They frequently became part of journalistic "special investigative teams" along with veteran journalists and editors. Typically continued their training alongside journalists at such workshops and seminars sponsored by Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) and National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting (NICAR). Sometimes known as "Information Specialists" or "Public Documents Researchers." These talented folks are comfortable with generating reports using a variety of software: MSWord documents, Excel Spreadsheets, structured query language software, database management programs, and PowerPoint presentations. They prepared bibliographies, biographies, timelines, reviews, analyses, charts, lists and much more. They are now just beginning to explore Wireless Application Protocols even if they don't really know what to do with them right now. Specific examples of award-winning news researchers can be found here and include Linda Amster from the New York Times, Brooke Caine from The News & Observer, Liz Donovan from The Miami Herald, Randy Herscraft from The Associated Press. More recently come this email to the NewsLib list about another prize-winning news researcher. Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 11:15:25 -0700 From: Julia.Franco@latimes.com Subject: [newslib] Pulitzer at the Los Angeles Times We're a little late, but we want to do some Pulitzer breast-beating, too. One of our National reporters, David Willman, won the prize this Monday for Investigative Reporting. We're extremely proud of David. The stories he did exposed the dangers of the drug Rezulin, which had been approved by the FDA [Federal Drug Administration] , but was causing deaths among its users. What we especially want to share, though, is the role that our projects librarian, Janet Lundblad, played in the investigation and in getting the stories and the graphics into the paper. Quoting from our Library Director, Dorothy Ingebretsen: " Janet Lundblad (who was with David for the announcement at the National Desk) was singled out twice by John Carroll [Editor of the Los Angeles Times] for her research contributions which extended over a period of several years. It was gratifying and fitting to see her hard work and efforts acknowledged in this way. Congratulations, Janet, for your excellent work and for so visibly and capably demonstrating the value library research can bring to a project. P.S. You can read the stories at www.latimes.com (type pulitzer in the search box). Julia Franco Los Angeles Times Editorial Library There are also new job titles and oportunities in news libraries
KM is becoming part of the company’s revenue stream. Ginny Everett, head of news research at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is one example. Lany McDonald, Time, Inc.'s head of news research is another. More will emerge. In the last decade of the 20th century another development appears in the evolution of news librarians. A few are venturing into academic positions, becoming mass communication bibliographers, media institute instructors, and directors of new media (Nora Paul at the University of Minnesota's Center for New Media is the prime example). In some instances, former news librarians have become publishers of directories, information management consultants, online vendors' sales representatives and independent competitive intelligence agents. These exemplary media researchers have taken their skills and talents and polish them for new careers. I believe that we can see more of that in the future. Do these changes signal the end of employment trail for traditional news researchers and media archivists? I don't think so, but the 21st century has just begun and the only thing that most of us can count on is change. Still some things may never change. "Librarians as Librarians" In recent years, there has been an ongoing verbal battle among news librarians in the United States, the UK and other countries. Some insist that the only way to get status and credibility in the newsroom is to change the name of the library (archives?) to Information Center or News Research Department. They believe the term "librarian" is old fashioned, out of touch with what the modern news researcher does. At the very least, it may be inadequate. However, since in some countries, news librarians and media archivists are identified as "sub-editors," perhaps changing the name of the place from "library" or the "archives," to, say, to a "department" or a "division," is essential in order to achieve editorial rank. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps it is not the place, but the people who affect change. Others are of the opinion that they are librarians; they work in a library and that's that. Most of us agree that some of the most important responsibilities of the library/news research center will continue to be the traditional roles: we know how to collect information, evaluate it, preserve it, retrieve it, and present it.
What's more, news librarians are being recognized as professionals with increasingly valuable skills. Listen to this message recently sent to the NewsLib list. Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 18:12:39 -0400 From: Jessica Baumgart <jessica_baumgart@harvard.edu> Subject: [newslib] Lots of praise for librarians at Seybold in Boston! I just wanted to pass along some of the good things I heard about librarians at the Seybold Seminars in Boston last week. During sessions on digital rights management, content management systems, and digital asset management, the panelists talked about the benefits of having a librarian or someone with a background in information management working on these projects. After one of the digital asset management presentations, I asked what kind of advice the panelists could give me--a librarian whose position was created partially out of the office's need to have image files organized--and heard lots of good things. The moderator, Michael Moon, mentioned SLA and David Tenenbaum of MerlinOne recommended that I join the News Division since there are lots of helpful people in it working on similar projects. I thanked both of them afterwards for their advice, let them know that I've been participating in SLA and the News Division, and told them it was great to hear people in their position trumpeting the values of having a librarian on staff. I made sure that my management heard they were on the right track there! One gentleman asked about whether he absolutely had to hire a librarian, since he worked for a smaller publisher with a limited budget. 3 of the 4 answers were something like, "Well, you really should, but if you can't, there's ways around it. The quality of the product (the archive, research, system, etc.) won't be as good though." I think the audience, mostly editors, publishers, and others on the business side of things, needed to hear those comments from the panelists, the "experts," instead of from other audience members. The proceedings should be posted on the Seybold Reports Web site soon: http://www.seminars.seyboldreports.com/ Jessica Baumgart Harvard University
Jennifer Belton, Washington Post Reprinted from an April 5, 2001 NewsLib posting with permission from the correspondent, Jennifer Belton, former director of the Washington Post’s News Research Center: "It may make some sense to put it [my "retirement"] in context since ours is a major newspaper research center that was developed and has transitioned well over the years. "The Washington Post News Research Center created a highly valued nexus of researchers and online editors who responded to an average of 200 requests a day. Kathy Foley helped direct the creation of our internal archive of Post stories and later of photos. We brought in the first PCs to the newsroom and developed a solid research staff and began assigning them to desks in the newsroom more than 10 years ago. Initially, the researchers were posted to foreign and financial and later to investigative [projects] and more recently to national. (Separate from News Research, Margot Williams assumed a job in Metro and made great strides by working closely on Metro projects and developing databases. She now has the title of Research Editor and is well assisted by Bob Lyford.) The News Research Center worked closely with reporters and editors, convincing the Managing and Executive Editors that Internet was a resource for the entire newsroom, not just News Research and a handful of reporters. We moved from that point to developing the first newsroom intranet, and it was Sheryl Rosenthal (now at US News and World Report) who so ably organized the breadth of resources for each desk consisting of both our in-house collection and the resources on the net. We then negotiated contracts with Nexis and Dow Jones and Gale for broad newsroom access, (and were able to effect discounts with some providers by broadening the negotiations to cover the entire company.) Two years ago a newsroom Technology Editor was named and the News Systems and News Research Center functions were combined in one department. Slots were slowly moved from research to technology and reporters assumed many of their own research tasks. Researchers now dedicate themselves to the more complex research tasks and guide reporters. Many of the functions of creating and transmitting the text and photo archives have been automated and many of the staff work on projects. We built the News Research Center up, distributed much of the staff into the newsroom, and have built it down, so to speak. The entire transition has been a positive one and has served the newsroom well. Everything we created was built as a team and I'm very proud of all we accomplished. "Personally, I've moved on to work on projects compatible with my desire to work part time. I encourage anyone interested in converting their historic archive from microfilm to digital images, searchable and fully displayable online, to contact me. I've learned a lot over the past several months and would be happy to share my knowledge. We will soon announce plans for the development of our digital archive and I'll post the press release here." -Jen Belton Lany McDonald, Time, Inc.'s "strategic asset" Lany undertook the challenging task of restructuring, retraining, retooling, and mission redefinition of Time, Inc.'s library. Further, she set out to make the news research center the "research button" on the corporate Intranet. Not only that, but she and her staff created the content for the research center's intranet AND the Intranets for Time, Inc.'s finance department, human resources department, eventually taking on the added responsibilities (for a profit) creating specialized Intranets for advertisers'! Amid all these initiatives, the Research Center staff continued to work as researchers, trainers, group managers, clerks, and database developers [Note: Celebrity Contacts database] as well as contributors to their own home page. Lany knows very well how to calculate "return on corporate investment" for news research. Kathy Foley, San Antonio Express-News Kathy is being honored this year at the News Divisions Awards & Honors banquet with the Joseph F. Kwapil Award. She has earned it. In her earlier professional life with the Washington Post she developed path-breaking photo archiving projects. Together with M.J. Crowley they joined the NPPA (National News Photographers Association) in producing annual workshops for digital photographers and news researchers. An outstanding example of journalism partnerships. Currently, she is information editor at the San Antonio Express-News. When asked about arranging a tour of her newspaper library for those of us attending the SLA conference in her city, she replied that there is really no longer much to see. For the library staff is dispersed throughout the newsroom. The Express-News now has a "virtual library." Teresa Leonard, Raleigh, NC News & Observer Moving from an earlier profession as a news photographer to her current job as director of The N & O's News Research Department, Teresa is a prime example of "job redefinition." She has coordinated research for several computer-assisted reporting projects at her paper, including one that earned a Pulitzer Prize, and was recently appointed by her publisher to a corporate-wide project directed toward the analysis of the paper's readers and community. Along the way she has written articles, organized regional seminars on news research, taught university-level library science courses, and held leadership roles in professional associations. Jim Hunter, Columbus Dispatch Jim's specialty is polling research. He works with a senior editor developing and analyzing political polling questions. Polling data and census data are increasingly a part of investigative reporting as evidenced by a series Jim and a journalist collaborated on involving aging U.S. World War II veterans. Jim is also one of several U.S. news librarians directing internship programs. John Jannson, Chicago Tribune A veteran journalist and long-time library director, John has actively supported the development of key word thesaurus construction for photo archives. Currently he is director of a corporate initiative for his paper to digitize (and make searchable) the front pages of the Chicago Tribune going back to the original publication date, 1850s (?) The project is estimated to cost $15 million. M. J. Crowley, Star-Ledger M.J. is our News Division archivist as well as a long-time investigative researcher. She has worked with Pulitzer-Prize winning journalists at the Philadelphia Inquirer and currently is Research editor at the Star-Ledger. She attends the senior editors daily news budget meeting and submits research budgets. Her work with press photographers is path breaking. She initiated the development of her paper's Intranet, with her staff supplying the content. Ginny Everett, Atlanta Journal- Constitution Ginny is recognized for her innovative leadership efforts at enhancing news library services, especially with sales of newspaper photos. Check the 1999 issue of Online for an interview with her. Her library's internships are eagerly sought. Further, she is a frequent speaker at professional conferences [Note: Ginny will be speaking to the Swedish Media Librarians Association May 10.] and has served as a consultant to emerging media libraries.
Annabel Colley, BBC's (investigative researcher) Annabel is currently on an internal bBC assignment to a pilot Knowledge Management initiative called the BBC Programme Makers Workbench Project. She is Chair of the Association of UK Media Librarians and is a published author and speaker on computer assisted research and reporting in the U.K. and Europe. This year she will be honored as International Special Librarian by the European Chapter of the Special Libraries Association. She will receive a honorarium to defray expenses to SLA's annual conference this June in San Antonio, Texas.
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