UMI New York Times CD-ROM

[Floyd Pentlin <fpentlin@HOBBS.LEESUMMIT.K12.MO.US>]

//////Sorry group - this message bounced to Gail Szeliga - am sending to
everyone///////

Subject: Re: NY Times Full Text on CD
To: "Gail M. Szeliga" <ny000999@MAIL.NYSER.NET>

Gail -- This is the first year that I have used NYTimes full-text CD.
This coincided with the implementation of a ROM tower last fall.
Generally, I am very happy with it -- and the students are ecstatic about
it.

Two caveats:  1)  since the articles are full-text, keeping printing to
what is absolutely necessary becomes progressively difficult.  If I could
figure out how to handle the printing cost/noise/speed better I would
consider more full-text databases.  2) It is probably the unfriendliest
search screen of the DBs that we have.  Once the students use it, they
figure it out, but there is a lot of confusion at first - particularly as
the articles come up with bibliographic info and summary -- and unless the
students *know* that the article is full text, they assume it is only
bibliographic like MAS and NewsBank.  Also, changing the default from just
printing the bibliographic citation to printing the entire text is *not*
obvious.  However, I am reluctant to changing the default, so we help the
students as when they can't figure it out.

The reason I subscribed to NY Times on ROM is because I had previous
subscribed to NY on microfiche because MAS inded it.  No problem -- except
that MAS indexed only the front page of each section and so I had so much
information that was not being used.  An electronic index to the fiche was
the same cost as full-text, so I dropped the fiche and went electronic.

Boy, is this ever more than what you wanted to know!!!!  --Floyd

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Floyd Pentlin, Library Media Specialist / Lee's Summit High School, Div. 2
400 Blue Parkway / Lee's Summit, MO 64063 / VOICE: 816-251-3418
FAX: 816-251-3419 / E-MAIL: fpentlin@hobbs.leesummit.k12.mo.us
"What's another word for thesaurus?" - Steve Wright
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