Still, nothing in our professional and personal experience really prepared us for the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Those of us who are news librarians simply did what we have always done: get the facts, check them, check them again, ask questions, verify answers, create paper and electronic trails, intranets, and digital archives. All the while updating information and delivering it on deadline.

    News librarians don’t have a unique claim on rigorous research and thorough fact checking in media organizations. Journalists have been doing it for decades if not centuries, in all venues. Lately, however, this effort is marked by very close partnerships between journalists and news librarians. In some situations this effort in cooperative research has earned Pulitzer Prizes. A web site documents these stories.

Increasingly, news researchers are coming out of the libraries and entering into the newsrooms. Some are earning credit lines for their contributions to breaking news stories and investigative reports. They have created timelines, prepared background briefs, collected and analyzed statistical data. A few receive bylines for their columns and reviews. Moreover, news library managers are involved in the creation and quality control of their organizations archival text and image databases. Further, they are frequently the "go to" folks for questions about the licensing and archiving of corporate media information assets. Nevertheless, there is at least one striking difference between journalists and news researchers. When it comes to interviewing survivors of catastrophes or families and friends of deceased, journalists take responsibility.

[Note: NY Times WTC Coverage: "Portraits of Grief." Focus on aspects of missing person’s character. Celebrate life. Not an obit. Over 800 so far.]

NewsLib is an open electronic discussion list for nearly 1,400 subscribers from 24 countries. It was launched in 1993 with fewer than a dozen news librarians. Now we have, in addition to news librarians from newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, reporters, editors, journalism educators, library/info science students, vendors and a few PR types on it as well.

NewsLib discussion is lively, informative, helpful, and civil. Messages averaged about 7-10 per day prior to Sept. 11. Then, NewsLib turned into the equivalent of an "emergency research response team." News researchers dug through vintage clip files, and combed current reference books. They searched online databases and web sites. Then they checked and rechecked information before emailing, phoning, and faxing the results. More than a few news librarians I know were working two computers while simultaneously watching and listening to broadcast news reports.

In the first 24 hours of that day NewsLib logged nearly 90 requests for reference help. That level continued for several days, then dropped to between 40-50 per day. A web page was created on Sept. 11 to track the queries.

Bear in mind that this page is only a small sample of the vast amount and complexity of research undertaken by news librarians, journalists, educators, and information specialists throughout the world. We owe tribute to all those who nevertheless still found the time to respond to the many requests for research help.

First message:
Tue, 11 Sep 2001 09:24:59 –0400
"Lavey, Shelley" lavey@freepress.com
World Trade Center

Has anyone come across any significance to the date of September 11 that
might be related to the events at the World Trade Center today?

Followed by Anne Mintz (Forbes) offering this:

Last year the Palestinian Authority bowed to international pressure to 
not declare statehood, according to the NYT. That may have occurred on 
9/10, since it was in the 9/11 paper. Was this the date the were supposed 
to make the declaration? Possibly related?

Queries continued and ranged from the simple to the complex. And there was a hoax or two.

Over 1,000 messages on NewsLib addressed the events of Sept. 11. And they continue. Some queries are revisited, analyzed and updated. They will be added to the ongoing thread, one by one.

News librarians were plagued by the same problems other Americans were facing: telecommunications never before had been tested for such heavy traffic. Servers were down. [See item #48; then continue with the examples of the first few hours.]

CLOSING

Perhaps the best way to capture the essence of what news librarians and researchers do is to recall a quote from Orange County Register library director, Sharon Ostmann Clairemont:

"Our responsibility is to discover, nurture, cultivate information, harvest it, keep it clean, store it, protect, and share it".

    Another newsman offered this observation: "News is a first rough draft of history that can never be completed in a world we can never really understand." Philip Graham, former Washington Post publisher. 

    I agree, but I know that all journalists and news librarians continue the struggle to understand and to share that comprehension. It’s our mission.