Yowza! Two Transformative Years in the Energetic Life of The … · NEWS DIVISION EXECUTIVE BOARD...

Vol. 29, No. 1/Fall 2006

GOING GLOBAL / 5Librarians in two

countries share knowl-edge about an archivingsystem in common.

NLN PROFILE/ 8Library Profile editor

Amy Disch takes a breakfrom profiling librariesto profile longtimelibrarian, Kathy Waxler.

LEARNING &TEACHING / 10 & 7

News librarians gath-er at Poynter Institute tolearn, and at lecture hallsand classrooms to teach.

ELECTIONS / 11Nominations for vari-

ous Division board posi-tions are featured.

THE INSIDESTORY

BY JENNIFER FARRAR

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Associated Press is the world’slargest newsgathering organization,with 4,000-plus employees serving

more than 120 countries. Researchers at theAP’s News Research Center are an integrat-ed, powerful part of the news process,working in partnership with editors andreporters, AP bureaus, and with our graph-ics, online, television and photography divi-sions. This integral coordination has notalways been the case. Here’s the story ofhow we made the change, and of our recentgood fortune at receiving one of the AP’smost prestigious honors, the 2006 Oliver S.Gramling Achievement Award for staffexcellence.

THE STAFFAll of the current NRC staff, located at

AP headquarters in New York, were hiredwithin the past five years, with the excep-tion of investigative researcher RandyHerschaft and senior researcher SusanJames. Herschaft, who just celebrated his20th year with the AP, specializes in busi-

ness research, FOIA requests, and militaryand public records. He was a member ofthe AP investigative reporting team thatwon a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for “TheBridge at No Gun Ri,” a package of storiesreporting the mass killings of South Koreancivilians by American troops at the start ofthe Korean War. James came to the AP in

1990 with 19 years of experience, includingfive years in research labs at Pillsbury and11 years at the Institute for Electrical andElectronics Engineering (IEEE.) Shebecame the AP’s Research Manager in2000, and was promoted to DeputyDirector in 2005.

Yowza! Two Transformative Years in the Energetic Life ofThe Associated Press News Research Center

Continued on page 14

NLN FEATURE

Seated, left to right: Randy Herschaft, Jennifer Farrar, Rhonda Shafner and John Parsons.Standing, left to right: Susan James, Julie Reed, Judy Ausuebel, Barbara Sambriski, Lynn Dombekand Monika Mathur.

NEWSDIVISION

EXECUTIVEBOARD

News Library News (ISSN 1047-417X) isthe bulletin of the News Division of theSpecial Libraries Association. SLAHeadquarters address is: SLA, 331South Patrick St., Alexandria, VA22314. The phone number is: 703/647-4900. News Library News is publishedfour times a year by the division.Reproduction in whole or part withoutpermission is prohibited.

Special Libraries Association assumesno responsibility for the statements andopinions advanced by the contributorsof the association’s publications.Editorial views do not necessarily rep-resent the official position of SpecialLibraries Association. Acceptance of anadvertisement does not imply endorse-ment of the product by SpecialLibraries Association.

To place advertisements or to obtainadvertising information, you can con-tact Leigh Montgomery, the managingeditor, at her e-mail address: [email protected].

Copy for bylined columns should besubmitted to the column editor. Allother copy may be submitted to LeighMontgomery at her e-mail address.

News Library NewsFALL 2006

Vol. 29, No.1

PAGE 2 NEWS LIBRARY NEWS FALL 2006

COMMITTEECHAIRS

NLN STAFF

CHAIR, Denise J. Jones, News and Observer,Raleigh, NC, 919/829-9818,e-mail: [email protected]

CHAIR-ELECT, Jim Hunter, Columbus Dispatch,Columbus, OH, 614/461-5039,e-mail: [email protected]

PAST CHAIR/DIRECTOR-AWARDS,Jennifer Small Evert, LexisNexis, Miamisburg,OH, 800/227-9597, x58037,e-mail: [email protected]

SECRETARYMerrie Monteagudo, San Diego Union-Tribune,San Diego, CA, 619/718-5431e-mail: [email protected]

TREASURER, Peter Johnson, Preservati Partners,Los Angeles, CA, 323/478-9417 or 213/590-5983,e-mail: [email protected]

DIRECTOR-EDUCATION/PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT CHAIR, Dana Gordon,Newsweek Inc., New York, NY, 212/445-4012,e-mail: [email protected]

DIRECTOR-PUBLICATIONS, Leigh Poitinger, SanJose Mercury News, San Jose, CA, 408/920-5972, e-mail: [email protected]

NEWS DIVISION COMMITTEE CHAIRSARCHIVIST CHAIR, Teresa Leonard, News and

Observer, Raleigh, NC, 919/829-4866e-mail: [email protected]

AUTOMATED-TECHNOLOGY CHAIR,Peter Johnson, Preservati Partners, LosAngeles, CA, 323/478-9417 or 213/590-5983e-mail: [email protected]

BROADCAST CHAIR, Kee Malesky, National PublicRadio, Washington, DC, 202/513-2356e-mail: [email protected]

GOVERNANCE CHAIR, Linda Henderson,Providence Journal, Providence, RI 401/277-7887e-mail: [email protected]

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS CHAIR, vacant

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHAIR, vacant

MEMBERSHIP CHAIR, Alice Pepper, Detroit FreePress, Detroit, MI, 313/222-5135e-mail: [email protected]

NOMINATIONS CHAIR, Jennifer Small Evert,LexisNexis, Miamisburg, OH, 800/227-9597,x58037, e-mail: [email protected]

PROGRAM PLANNER CHAIR, Justin Scroggs,NewsBank, Inc., Naples, FL, 239/263-6004,e-mail: [email protected]

PUBLICITY-PUBLIC RELATIONS CHAIR, ClaireWollen, Toronto Star, Toronto, CN, 416/869-4518,e-mail: [email protected]

SMALL LIBRARIES CHAIR, Anne Holcomb,Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo, MI, 269/388-2705, e-mail: [email protected]

STRATEGIC PLANNING CHAIR, vacant

TELLER/ELECTIONS CHAIR, Lynne Palombo, TheOregonian, Portland, OR, 503/294-5084, e-mail:[email protected]

WEBMEISTRESS, Amy Disch, The ColumbusDispatch, Columbus, OH, 614/461-5177,e-mail: [email protected]

NLN MANAGING EDITOR

Leigh MontgomeryThe Christian Science MonitorBoston, MA617/450-2682e-mail: [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

PEOPLEJennifer O’NeillThe Florida Times-UnionJacksonville, FL904/359-4184e-mail: [email protected]

LIBRARY PROFILESAmy DischThe Columbus DispatchColumbus, OH614/461-5177e-mail: [email protected]

TECH TIPSDerek WillisThe Washington PostWashington, DCe-mail: [email protected]

Total membership: 653

It is a month into autumn, and with thisseason a new venture for me: editor ofyour publication, the News Library

News. Editor’s columns seem to require thatone write what is going on outside of theirwindow at some point, so here is a glimpse ofOctober in Boston: it is crisp and cool, theshowy red and orange foliage has fallen awayand the brown oak leaves remain on the trees.This is actually my favorite part of fall: for meit is all about the oaks. They are resilient, andremain on the tree well into November.Though the ‘leaf peepers’ that travel throughNew England are attracted by the brilliantcolors of the maples and the brighter trees,they should pause to see the subtler beauty ofthe tan oak leaves in the sun - especially incontrast against a gray sky. And after all, if itweren’t for the oak leaves, the landscapewould be entirely different.

This issue is published at a very challeng-ing time for the news industry. Editors andnews executives everywhere are looking forpractical applications to help our news enter-prises, and we’re all trying to identify what’sworking, shed what’s not working - and wor-rying a great deal about what’s next.

I admit that I was concerned over thesummer: with all of the demands on smalllibrary staffs in an industry in transition, withone of the most demanding productionschedules in the world -how on earth will peoplefind time to documentwhat’s happening with theirlibraries?

I needn’t have worried.I’ve been so deeplyimpressed by what pouredforth into my e-mail box.In this issue are stories ofour colleagues who aredeveloping new tools anddatabases not only for theirstaffs - but for other users. There are manystories of accomplishments both recognizedand rewarded. Multiple mentions of innova-tions in technology for news applications.There is an article by a librarian who soughtto gain and share knowledge about a similararchiving system at a newspaper across theocean. A story about the revival of a PoynterInstitute seminar - training emerging talentin the news library profession - as well as anarticle about news librarians in front of theclassroom themselves. And a profile of alibrarian who recalls working in the newsover four decades - and still loves her job.

At this point, news employees everywhereare looking for some good news. If I mayhumbly but practically suggest: a great dealmay be found in this issue. I sincerely hopeyou enjoy this publication as much as I’vetruly enjoyed editing and reading it - it’s aheartening compilation of stories - enduring,inspiring, resilient. Our own oak leaves.

❝ In this issue arestories of our col-leagues who aredeveloping new toolsand databases, notonly for their staffs -but for other users.❞

LEIGH MONTGOMERY

THE ASIDE BAR

FALL 2006 NEWS LIBRARY NEWS PAGE 3

NEWS LIBRARY NEWS FALL 2006

BY DENISE JONES

NOTESFROMTHECHAIR

PARTING SHOT AS THE GAVELPASSES...

It is hard to believe that my term as yourNews Division chair is over. It has been anhonor to serve you. My role seemed easybecause so many great people worked withme. And work you did! Thanks go to all thedivision members I called upon during thepast year and a half. I appreciate your will-ingness to help and the opportunity I hadto get to know each of you better.

New officers will officially begin theirterms on January 1. (If you haven’t alreadydone so, please be sure to vote!) Since SLAoffices no longer change July 1, we did nothave the usual “ritual” at annual conferenceof handing overthe gavel to theincoming chair.But now it is timefor Jim Hunter totake his gavel!Look, Jim: it ison its way to younow (see photo)!

Before closing,I would like tocommend Dana Gordon for assembling anexcellent educational program for newsresearchers - the News Research Academy.Fourteen of our colleagues attended thisthree-day program at the Poynter Institutein September. The program was aimed notat research managers and directors but atthose researchers who are newer to the field.What a great way for news researchers tomeet others, who do the same things theydo, and to learn new skills together. Danagathered an impressive group of speakersand sessions and the comments I receivedafterwards were glowing. I hope the NewsDivision will continue to offer a variety ofeducational opportunities to its members.

As your former chair I still look forwardto being part of the News Division. Thenews industry is changing and at times thefuture may look uncertain. I urge you all tostay active in the Division so we can work

together to manage - andsurvive - these changes. I’msure Jim Hunter and, later,Justin Scroggs, are alreadyplanning ways to help usdo just that.

Again, my thanks to allof you who helped makemy tenure as your chair atruly enjoyable andenlightening time for me.

Our Division is fortunate to have so manydedicated and skilled members.

❝ It has been anhonor to serve you.My role seemedeasy because somany great peopleworked with me.❞

Jones passing on the gavel.

News Division CE in Denver

BY DANA GORDON

Join us for the upcoming CE course in Denver at the SLAConference. The class will be held on Sunday, June 3 from 8a.m. to 5 p.m. The course, entitled “News Researcher’s TechToolbox ‘07: Tools for Turning Data Into Stories,” will take atechy turn and look at some of the projects our colleagueshave developed. You will get an overview of some key toolsbeing used—particularly open source tools like MySQL,PHP, and Python—for creating dynamic web pages andautomating data collection. We’ll also look at Wikis in thenewsroom. The goal of the session is for attendees to learnwhat’s out there and how news research departments are par-ticipating or can participate in this growing area of storydevelopment.

Hope to see you there!

BY DEBORAH CHARLES

THE ROYAL GAZETTE AND MID-OCEAN NEWS

Curiosity killed the catBut satisfaction brought him backSource: O. Henry: Schools and Schools (1909)[First recorded use].http://www.answers.com/topic/curiosity-killed-the-cat

Margrethe’s StoryMeet Margrethe Mose, Manager of

Electronic Archives and the staff that workat Borsen - The Danish Business Daily, locat-ed at 19 Montergade DK-1116 inCopenhagen, Denmark. Both Mrs. Mose’sLibrary and the Library in The RoyalGazette Library share a common denomina-tor. They both use BRS Search, which isthe Archiving Library software produced bya company called SAXoTECH.SAXoTECH also produces a series of soft-ware packages in the SAXoPRESSPublishing System which comprise ourEditorial system. Namely, SAXoBasiswhich is our frontend system, the softwarethe reporters use when they are creating orentering a story into the system for the firsttime coupled with pagination softwarewhich uses QuarkXpress, and NetNewswhich is our web-based software system.

Being a member of SLA’s News Divisionand a regular attendee at the SLAConferences I have visited and seen manyNewspaper Libraries from the east to westcoast of the United States and Canada.However, this was an opportunity not to bemissed - to take my exposure and knowl-edge to a global level. Margrethe Mose andI met online through Newslib - the NewsDivision Listserv about 6 years ago.SAXoTECH home base is in Copenhagen,Denmark. I was curious to find out justwhat the newspaper, publishing and maga-zine businesses in Copenhagen who used

SAXoTECH software thought of it, espe-cially since it was created there? How wellthey used it, and what they could tell andteach me that I didn’t already know? Likethe old saying: if they were the shoemakers’children: did they have the best shoes? TheRoyal Gazette uses BRS Search 4.5, Borsenuses BRS Search 9.0 - Livelink DiscoveryServer. The most current version of the sys-tem on the market at this time is R6. Howdoes Mrs. Mose manage to do it all: with orwithout all the bells-and-whistles that myinquiring mind, as well as others, wouldlove to know?

Mrs. Mose described Borsen, a salmon-coloured business tabloid, as the leadingnewspaper in Copenhagen. They also pro-duce Borsen Lifestyle Magazine 14 times ayear. They have a staff of approximately250 people: 60 of which are journalists, the

rest consist of Administration, Archives,Layout, Subscription and PhotoDepartments etc... They have a circulationof 70,000 daily.

The key to successful archiving is havinga staff of 5 along with 2 - 4 Enhancers andTypesetters. The Enhancers prepare thestories in the newspapers by assigning themdocument numbers and ensuring that thejumps are assigned as well. The typesetterstype in information, which gets lost in thetransition process of creating the news,placing it on the designated pages andprinting it for distribution. Their job is tocontrol the data in a consistent manner.

The Photography Department isresponsible for photos, graphs, charts, illus-tration and any graphic images used in theirpublication. They enter and archive all theirown information.

NLN FEATURE



GOING GLOBAL: Librarians in two countries shareknowledge about an archiving system in common

Left to right: Deborah Charles, News Librarian The Royal Gazette/Mid-Ocean News, MargretheMose, Manager / Electronic Archives Borsen, Virginia Charles (Deborah’s Mother) and Pia OltiengHausen, Archive Assistant of Borsen.


PEOPLE

BY JENNIFER O’NEILL

As a result of a voluntary retirement offer madeto newsroom staff at The Washington Post, LucyShackelford has been named the new Director

of Information Services, succeeding Bridget Roeber,who took the offer. Since starting her career at TheWashington Post in 1989, Lucy has been investigativeresearcher, national researcher and research editor.

Alice Crites will take over Lucy’s old position asresearch editor. Alice has been with the Post since 1990and has been a prominent desk researcher, making asignificant research contribution to the 2006 PulitzerPrize-winning stories about lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Madonna Lebling was promoted to the nationaldesk as its researcher and Meg Smith was promoted tothe metro desk researcher.

Sara Pearce has a new job at the CincinnatiEnquirer as Information and Research Specialist. It’s abrand new title, so she is defining it as she goes. Hermain responsibility - at the moment - is to assess thestate of their collections both physical and virtual, andto make recommendations for maintaining, archivingand updating. She is also connecting with area librariesto see how to better use their resources and to investi-gate possible partnerships on digital projects.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is creating a “datadesk” thatwill merge with the library, although the final structureof things is yet to be determined.

Sara is a former features editor and reporter who hasworked at papers big and small from the York DailyRecord to USA Today. She also happens to have aMasters in Library and Information Science fromRutgers University .

When she took the position she says one of the firstthings she did was to join the Special LibrariesAssociation and get on the listserv. I believe she will bea success.

Linda Deitch, assistant library director at TheColumbus Dispatch, recently became a first-time Momwhen she and her husband, Andy Resnik, adopted a lit-tle girl from Guatemala. Melanie Elena Resnik wasborn Jan. 6, 2006, and joined the family in September.

Linda reports that when given a choice of toys orbooks to play with in her playpen, Melanie always goesstraight for the books!

Nathan Rosen, Vice President in the Legal &Compliance Department of Credit Suisse, has beenhighlighted as a success story for 2006 by InsideCounsel magazine in the September issue dedicated toinnovators. Out of hundreds of legal departments,

Inside Counsel selected the ten most innovative legaldepartments in corporate America that developed solu-tions to common problems. They chose to include onelibrarian - who happens to be a member of our division- Nathan Rosen.

In addition to helping the business run more effi-ciently, the article commends Nathan for buildingbridges between departments and responding to theneeds of his clients. See page 56 of the September issue,which can be found at: http://www.insidecounsel.com/issues/insidecounsel/pdfs/IC10.pdf.

After 26 years, Judy Sall retired from The DallasMorning News. She says it has been a great ride and thatworking in a newspaper library has been the best.

Judy thanks everyone who provided information,help and support over the years. And says she will bechecking in from time to time on Newslib because shecares. (Or because she doesn’t have enough sense to stayaway.)

Barbara Semonche reminds us that Judy has beenan ardent supporter of news research staff training,especially with Investigative Reporters & Editors bootcamps. And that she has been involved with her news-paper’s decisions to install a recent frontend system,PCs on news staffs’ desktops, and library intranets.

Speaking of Barbara, I’m not sure if anyone saw thepost, but after 13 years Barbara Semonche decided itwas time to retire as NewsLib list administrator. Shesigned off by saying, “To say that I’ve been uplifted bythe extraordinary experience of serving for 13 years asNewsLib’s list administrator is an understatement. I’mindebted to you for your patience, understanding, gen-erosity, good humor, and brilliance. Collectively youare all, without doubt, the news profession’s equivalentof the “brain trust.” I salute you all.”

Barbara named Carolyn Edds, a veteran NewsLibsubscriber and currently a news researcher with the St.Petersburg Times as her successor. Many of us alreadyknow Carolyn. She has been active in News Divisionprograms for over 12 years. She is a native Floridianwho returned to Florida recently from Missouri, whereshe was the Eugene S. Pulliam research director for IRE(Investigative Reporters and Editors) and NICAR(National Institute for Computer-Assisted Research).Earlier Carolyn was a news researcher with the SanAntonio Express-News and the news research manager atthe Herald-Journal in Spartanburg , S.C.



BY ELLIE BRISCOE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Whoever said, “Those who can,do; those who can’t teach,” waswayyyyyyy off base.

This semester, for the first time, I’mteaching a course for a local library school:an overview of technical services. This mademe think: what are my News colleaguesdoing?

News Division members definitely“can,” and do, teach at library schools, shar-ing their expertise to help develop the nextgeneration of professional librarians. Someteach the classes that you’d expect, whichparallel the skills or work they do in theirlibraries:

—Kate Bird, News/Graphics ResearchLibrarian at The Vancouver Sun & TheProvince, teaches “Digital Image and TextCollections” at the School of Library,Archival and Infrmation Studies at theUniversity of British Columbia inVancouver.

—Anne Mintz, Director of KnowledgeManagement at Forbes Inc., taught theonline courses at Columbia’s library schoolfor four years.

And some go beyond news-focusedskills, to more general courses:

—John Cronin, formerly of the BostonHerald, was a visiting lecturer and substituteprofessor at Simmons College GraduateSchool of Library and Information Sciencein 1984, 1985, 1992 and 1997, teachingCurrent Issues in Library Administrationand Management of the Corporate Librarycourses. One of John’s assignments was aprofessional self-evaluation by each mem-ber of the class. “By the end of the term,about a third of the students had seriouslyaltered their professional goals,” he writes.“Teaching gave me the wonderful feeling ofbeing able to discuss what being a librarianis like with people who represented a broad

range of styles from neophytes to long-timepros in many fields who came to librarian-ship as a final career....The sharing ofknowledge contributed to my growth aswell as theirs. It’s similar to NewsLib and/orconference in many ways with the amountof knowledge sharing between instructorand class.”

Incidentally, John also serves as a mem-ber of the American Library Association’sCommittee on Accreditation as a PeerReview Panel Member who makes on-sitevisits to library schools which are goingthrough the re-accreditation process.

—Kee Malesky of NPR taughtHumanities Reference as an adjunct profes-sor at Catholic University’s library schoolfor about five years. She wrote, “I foundthat the students really appreciate theadjuncts because they know we’re reallibrarians and speak from practical experi-ence. Any time you can say, ‘Today we hadthis question/challenge and here’s what wedid,’ they’ll love it. One little ‘hidden agen-da’ I’ve had is to get the shy ones to over-come their fear of speaking in public. Ithink most librarians need to be able tomake a presentation to a manager, or train agroup of users, or something like that whichinvolves addressing a roomful of strangers.So I always encouraged oral presentationsand tried hard to get good discussionsgoing.”

—It’s no surprise that Vicky McCargarwas recruited to teach PreservationManagement by the San Jose StateUniversity School of Library andInformation Science. In 2004 and 2005 shetaught the same class for UCLA in theGraduate School of Education andInformation Studies. “One of the thingsI’ve done at both places is rework the exist-ing curriculum, which is mostly aboutbooks and libraries, to encompass a majorsegment (nearly 50% of the syllabus) on

digital preservation.”—Karen Van Rossem, currently at

Scholastic but formerly at Newsday, taughtan online database-searching course formore than 10 years at Queens College’sGraduate School of Library andInformation Studies in New York City. “Ifound the teaching very rewarding, andthrough my work with the college,Newsday had a great source for findinginterns for our research library. It’s stimulat-ing to work with students new to the pro-fession and share your experience withthem. It’s also great to have faculty access toa college library collection including thecollege databases. Timing can be tricky. It’shard to leave for your class when a story isbreaking and you’re close to deadline.”

—Jim Hunter of the ColumbusDispatch teaches the Special Libraries classat Kent State University School of Libraryand Information Science every other year,as a combination of guest speakers and vis-its to other libraries. He normally takes thestudents on six field trips, including to hisown library, and gets guest speakers for theother meetings. Jim is an alumnus of KentState; he started as a guest speaker for theprevious instructor of the class, and got pro-moted. “I have made special library believ-ers out of a number of students, and pro-duced some conversions to special librariesalong the way.” He has found he teachesmanagement and leadership, because theyare essential, and they aren’t taught in othercourses.

So if you find yourself recruited - don’tresist. But expect some bumps along theway the first time you teach a course. Jimfinally felt comfortable after the third timehe taught the course. The payoff is that he’sbeen forced to learn about his profession “ina way you don’t when you are just workingin it.”

NLN FEATURE

LIBRARIAN BY DAY, PROFESSOR BY NIGHTNews librarians in front of lecture halls and classrooms


LIBRARY PROFILE

BY AMY DISCH

You may notice something abit different about thisissue’s profile, namely that it

concerns an individual rather than alibrary. I have thoroughly enjoyedwriting and learning more aboutother news libraries and I plan tocontinue doing so. However, I alsothink it will be interesting to meetsome of our colleagues who haveworked in news libraries for a sig-nificant amount of time who canspeak to the changes they haveexperienced and the joys and frus-trations the job has brought them.

I have to give credit for this ideato my colleague Linda Deitch, whowas remarking about the upcominganniversary of another of our col-leagues, Kathy Waxler, and men-tioned that it might be interestingto write about people who havebeen working in news libraries formost, if not all, of their careers. Ithought it was a great idea andasked Kathy if I could interview herfor the inaugural librarian profile.She agreed, and I thank her forbeing generous with her time andher willingness to answer my ques-tions.

Kathy Waxler has been with TheColumbus Dispatch in Columbus,Ohio for 39 years and is the longestserving employee in its EditorialDepartment. Most of those yearshave been spent in the library,except for a couple of years whenshe worked as a paginator on thecopy desk.

After graduating from highschool in 1966, Kathy moved toColumbus to attend Bliss College, abusiness school that offered secre-tarial courses and helped studentsfind employment after graduation.She graduated in May 1967 andafter being out of work for the sum-mer, admits she was desperate for ajob. “My mom had told me I wouldhave to move back home if I didn’tfind something.” Then Kathy heardabout an opening for a library assis-tant at The Columbus Dispatch, oneof the city’s two daily newspapers atthat time, and the college sentKathy for an interview. She wasn’treally interested, but her thoughtwas to “work there for a little whileuntil a secretarial job opened up

somewhere.” Kathy arrived for theinterview and spoke with thepaper’s assistant managing editor (asthere was no Human Resourcesdepartment then) and was offeredthe job on the spot. Her salary : $60a week. “Big bucks,” Kathy jokesnow. Her first day at the Dispatchwas September 5, 1967.

The Dispatch occupies a six floorbuilding in downtown Columbusand when Kathy started there, thelibrary was located on the top floor.A second building, housing thepresses, was located immediatelybehind the first and the two wereadjoined by a walkway.

A joint operating agreementexisted between the Dispatch, which

A LONGTIME LIBRARIAN: KATHY WAXLERThe Columbus Dispatch’s longest servingeditorial employee reflects on a careerin its library

Kathy Waxler at the library

Continued on next page

was the city’s afternoon newspaper, and itsmorning counterpart, The ColumbusCitizen-Journal, and the staffs of bothpapers worked in the same building, but ondifferent floors. Kathy says she and her twoco-workers only did work for the Dispatchnewsroom employees, which at that timenumbered around 100 people.

The library’s main responsibility was togo through the daily paper, mark items ofinterest, clip the articles and file them.Kathy says they would receive only onecopy of the paper to work with, so if a storyhad five items that needed to be indexed,the first item would be noted on the paperand then four copies of the article wouldhave to be made for the remainder of thefiles. After the relevant terms were high-lighted and each story was appended to itsjump, Kathy and her colleagues would filethem. When someone in the newsroomneeded a clip file, they would call the libraryand Kathy or one of her co-workers wouldpull the file and take it to them.“Sometimes we joked that we needed rollerskates to do our jobs,” she says.

A similar process existed with photos.Kathy says that each day the library wouldreceive a stack of original photos, which sheand her colleagues would “match to whatwas in the paper. We would ID them andnote on the back the date they ran andassign subject terms to them.”

A few months after Kathy started, onDecember 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge,which spanned the Ohio River betweenGallipolis, Ohio and Point Pleasant, WestVirginia, collapsed, taking 37 cars andtrucks into the river and killing 46 people.Kathy remembers how hectic it was in thelibrary immediately following the tragedy.“We were asked to pull lots of clips andphotos and I remember thinking this is anexciting job.”

Kathy was a solo librarian for a time afterher two co-workers left and remembersmany nights being “forced to bring thepaper home and having my roommate helpme clip it.” This led to a significant filingbacklog, which “seemed to last a while,” shesays. Eventually, Kathy helped another ofher friends get hired in the library, whichalleviated some of that pile-up.

In 1974, Jim Hunter was hired as theDispatch’s first professional librarian. “Evenwith Jim on board, I still felt like thelibrary’s go-to person. For the first severalmonths after Jim was hired, people wouldcall the library, which was Jim’s phone num-ber, and ask for me.”

Kathy believes the most significantchange the library experienced is the intro-duction in 1985 of an electronic textarchive. It was “much faster and I thoughtit was really cool.” She adds that it meant“less chance of error. When filing by hand,even if you were doing a good job, mistakesget made, like clips getting put in the wrongfile and entire files being lost.” Kathy says

the move was generally well-received in thenewsroom, although “some old timers stillpreferred holding the clips in their hands.”

Even though the text archive was nowelectronic, the library continued to file printphotos. Kathy particularly remembersworking with the ACME photo collection,which had been purchased by Jim Hunterand delivered by semi from Cleveland. “Anaxle on the truck broke on the drive down,”and when the collection arrived, Kathyremembers it being “very disorganized. Thephotos were in boxes and extremely old filecabinets, many of which couldn’t beopened.” They were placed in the basementof the paper’s adjoining building and whenshe had time, Kathy would go over andreview the photos, “trying to see what wasgood and looking for anything to add to thelibrary’s collection. It was musty anddusty,” Kathy says, “but it was also funlooking through the different kinds of pho-tos.” The photos that were pulled weremerged into the library’s existing collection


LIBRARY PROFILE


In 1976 Jimmy Carter campaigns for U.S. President in front of the newsroom doors of The ColumbusDispatch. Pictured with him are Dispatch staffers l-r: Kathy Waxler, Terri Varney, and Shari Doolin.

A LONGTIME LIBRARIAN: KATHY

WAXLERContinued from previous page

BY MATTHEW FERNANDES,ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

AND ANGIE DROBNIC HOLAN,ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

On a warm (sweltering to some ofus) September evening in St.Petersburg, Florida, 14 news

librarians from around the country gatheredin the great hall at the Poynter Institute forMedia Studies.

The meet-and-greet session within theimpressive wood-beamed hall opened the2006 News Research Academy. It would bethe first Poynter academy specifically fornon-management level researchers.

After a nice dinner, the group was ledthrough our conference room and comput-er lab; an area that we would largely callhome for the following three days.

Our worthy and benevolent guidethroughout the academy was PaulPohlman, Associate Dean at Poynter whoteaches in the area of leadership. Paul waspresent at all of the sessions and used hisgreat conversational skills to provoke livelydiscussions on the many issues that affectnews librarians.

The next morning after breakfast at 7:30a.m.(ouch), library director Dave Sheddenled us on a tour of the institute and library.The library boasts an impressive collectiondevoted to journalism history, includingbooks, art and artifacts from the St.Petersburg Times, which Poynter owns.Dave’s historical displays and stories aboutformer St. Petersburg Times ChairmanNelson Poynter were fascinating andenlightening.

After the tour came the opening session,titled 21st Century News Research, con-ducted by Jody Habayeb. Jody, presently asenior product manager at NewsBank, firstgave a whirlwind history of news librariestaking us from clip files to telnet to theautomated PDF technology that the futureholds. In the discussion, Jody continuallyurged us to keep our tech skills sharp and to

volunteer to serve as middlemen andwomen between the IT department and thevendors. Another goal that came out of thissession was figure out ways to provide morecontent for the online area of the newspa-per.

Jody, who previously served as Archiveand Research Manager at Tampa Tribune’sNews Center, also shared her knowledgeand advice in the area of boosting theresearch department’s image and impor-tance in the newsroom. Her keys for build-ing newsroom relationships were profes-sionalism, trust, accuracy, timeliness, can-do attitude, story champion, good commu-nication and providing value-added detailsin request responses.

The next session, Public Records, waspresented by John Martin, news researcherat the St. Petersburg Times. John led a livelydiscussion of privacy issues and the chang-ing landscape of public records accessibility.He stressed that databases like Accurint areNOT reliable when it comes to court andcriminal records. A few examples he gave ofjournalists failing to perform basic criminalchecks on subjects (and the resulting correc-tions) were enough to scare the bejeezus outof us all!

John stressed the importance of doingmandatory checks on all political candi-dates, hiring record retrievers, checkingcounty records, and using BRB publicationsto learn how to obtain out-of-town records.

A demonstration of the new Nexis inter-face concluded the first day of the academy.In it, presenter Robyn Tolle noted thatAccurint’s database will migrate into a singleNexis platform called SmartLinx next year.

The new interface was dazzling andlooks like it will make our jobs much easierin the future. The streamlined interface ismuch more logical for the end-user.Additionally, several powerful new featureswill open up new avenues of search tech-nique, such as the freedom to group results

by category, publication name, subject,industry, company, geography or language.

Our second day started with DerekWillis of the Washington Post giving his pre-sentation, “Wiki Wacky Woo:Collaborative tools that can make yournewsroom better.” Most of us news librari-ans had heard of wikis, if only to discourageour newsroom from publishing informa-tion straight from Wikipedia, a wiki anyoneon the Internet can edit. On the otherhand, the wikis we would create wouldreside safely inside our newsroom firewalls,where only our colleagues could access it,Derek said. If the wiki was vandalized orparts were accidentally deleted, we newslibrarians would be able to identify the cul-prit and quickly restore it. Derek brieflyshowed how reporters at the WashingtonPost used the wiki - for instance, to sharenotes for their groundbreaking investiga-tion of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

We quickly delved into the nuts andbolts of how to set up a wiki. “Must haveadmin privileges! Must have admin privi-leges!”, he chanted. Then he gave a hands-on demonstration in the Poynter computerlab of how to install the scripting languageRuby on a server, and then his favorite wikisoftware, Instiki.

We also reviewed of the ins and outs ofkeeping the server up and running. In non-geek language, the server is simply the com-puter (a.k.a. “the box”) you’ve comman-deered to hold the wiki. It can be a regularPC, it just shouldn’t be your own worksta-tion, because it works best if it’s devoted tothe wiki. From time to time, the box willhave to be re-started, and daily diagnosticsare a good idea as well. When somethinggoes wrong, frequently all that is needed is arestart, Derek said.

A lively question and answer period fol-lowed. Because wikis are geared to storingand editing text, we had a discussion onPDFs and the best way to get data out of

PAGE 10 NEWS LIBRARY NEWS FALL 2006

CONFERENCE REVIEW

News Researchers Gather for Academy at Poynter


them. Derek recommended xPDF andshowed everyone how to get it onto his orher own computer and run it.

Following Derek’s wiki session was theestimable John Maines of the South FloridaSun-Sentinel. Maines took us on an exten-sive tour of the finer points of Exceldatabases, including tricks and tips for col-umn adjustment, filters, selecting and cor-rect sorting. Using an example of a schooldistrict database, John showed us how toload the database onto a network. Heagreed with Derek’s mantra of the need foradministrative privileges for your news-room network.

In the second half of John’s presentation,he showed us how to create an easy-to-usesearch interface for the newsroom. In thisscenario, we built our own web pages, witha search box and a “go” button, that wewould load onto our newsroom Intranet.The web page allows reporters direct accessto information that gets a lot of use, andsaves us news librarians time and energy in

the long run. John also discussed the ins and outs of

acquiring data, and how to handle the PDFproblem. Some public officials are wise tothe difficulties PDFs present for databasework. “We get whole databases in PDF,because they know it’s going to be hard forus to get it out of there,” John said.

Another session offered was a Train-the-Trainer style workshop from Debbie Wolfeof the St. Petersburg Times, who gave a briefhistory of the role of news researchers astrainers. Organization is the key to success,Debbie said. That means being on the samepage with your supervisor, identifying yourown strengths, and enlisting help from oth-ers as needed.

Tipsheets and skills checklists are alsovital tools for training efforts. These canhelp researchers teach and allow reporters tosee where they stand in their learning.Debbie also talked about the importance ofrecognizing and catering to different learn-ing styles - some people learn best visually,some verbally, some via hands-on demon-stration.

Debbie also emphasized being an exam-ple and a cheerleader for training in your

own newsroom. Create your presentation,then get people in the door by making itenticing to them. If you want to train themon using the archive, for instance, use real-world examples they might find useful.(Byline counts were a suggestion from someof the researchers.)

On the final day, the group held a wrap-up session where we shared the goals we allhoped to bring back to our departments forimplementation.

Before this closing lunch, though, thegroup piled into a bus and traveled over thewaters of Tampa Bay to visit the Tribune indowntown Tampa. Diane Grey, theTribune’s head archivist, led us on a tour ofthe newsroom, recently-relocated newslibrary and NBC News Channel 8.

One highlight (or lowlight for some) wassitting in on “Daytime,” the weekday‘news-lite’ shown mornings on Channel 8.To our surprise, jokester and co-host DaveNemeth referred to us as “nude librarians”on air—while opening the show. Momentsearlier we had told him we were “newslibrarians.” We’re sure he just misheard us...


CONFERENCE REVIEW

News Researchers Gatherfor Academy at PoynterContinued from previous page

Front row: Angelica Cortez, Palm Beach Post; Jody Habayeb, NewsBank; Angie Drobnic Holan, St. Petersburg Times; Leslie A. Norman, The WallStreet Journal; Ana Rodriguez, El Neuvo Herald Back row: Matt Fernandes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; John Maines, South Florida Sun-Sentinel; ErinPfeiffer, St. Paul Pioneer Press; Mark Hannan, USA Today; Carolyn Edds, St. Petersburg Times (behind Hannan); Maria Wygand, Charlotte Observer;James S. Kim, Los Angeles Times; Julie Domel, San Antonio Express News; Amy Disch, Columbus Dispatch; Amy DeCicco, National Public Radio;Lamara Williams-Hackett, Raleigh News & Observer; Paul Pohlman, Poynter Institute.


The following candidates are asking for your votefor News Division officer positions. You shouldhave received a ballot in the mail. Please remem-ber that ballots are due by December 1, 2006.

CHAIR-ELECT

RON LARSON

The Wisconsin State Journal / The CapitalTimes

I have been anews librarian sinceJune 1978. Duringthat time, our pro-fession has grownand changed as wereacted and respond-ed to new technolo-gies and challenges.

I began my careeras librarian for the Wisconsin State Journal.It was a small library consisting of manycabinets full of clippings and photographs.My assistants and I diligently marked,clipped and filed thousands of newspaperarticles over the course of my first 11 yearsin the library.

You would have thought that 11 years ofthe tedious work of clipping and filingwould have driven most clear-minded peo-ple to other professions, or at least, to otherlibrary work. But the exciting future ofwhat lay ahead for news libraries was toointriguing to abandon.

I remember in 1981 the promise of textdatabases as I attended my first NewsDivision seminars at the Atlanta SLA con-ference. How exciting was that future? I hadto stick around for that. Little did I know itwould take eight more years before thatfuture device was installed in my library.

I remember in 1985 when theLexis/Nexis sales rep stopped by my libraryto demonstrate the magic of searching themany newspapers online. How fantasticwas that? I wasn’t going to miss that oppor-tunity. Our editor at that time was anti-quated and stubborn and refused to investin such things. I waited him out as heretired in 1986. The online era arrived inmy library in 1987.

I remember in 1991 when the Internetwas creating a buzz among librarians. I hadto get involved with that. I set up e-mailaccounts through the University ofWisconsin for interested reporters and edi-tors. First, however, I had to answer theirquestions, “What’s the Internet? What’s e-mail?”

I remember in 1993 when NewsLibarrived, allowing our profession to commu-nicate simultaneously to hundreds of fellowcolleagues around the world. What a greatlistserv! I couldn’t leave such a valuablegroup of professionals.

I remember also in 1993 when digitalphotography was forcing us to figure outhow to archive such material. The challengewas too intriguing and the technology wastoo amazing to leave for some other line ofwork.

I remember in 1995 hearing about htmland creating Web pages. What great poten-tial did that offer news libraries? It was likemagic! I had to stick around to incorporatethat into my library.

I remember in 2000 hearing about digi-tizing the clip files or microfilm. The entiremicrofilm collection searchable?! Howfuturistic is that? I want to be around whenit happens. It is extremely costly but I’mstill exploring.

I remember just yesterday learningabout RSS, wikis, blogs and mashups. I’mstill trying to figure out those technologies,so I can’t leave now.

Helping me through these many years ofadventures and discovery has been theNews Division, its members, conferences,NewsLib and News Library News. It’s thisgroup and its dedication to teaching, tosharing and to our profession that has beenmy primary motivation to continue on as anews librarian.

It is my goal, as I start out as chair-elect-elect, then to chair-elect and finally chair, tocontinue the strong impact and legacy ofthe News Division for all of our members aswe continue to react and respond to newtechnologies and challenges.

SECRETARY

AMY DISCH

The Columbus Dispatch

I am a news researcher at The ColumbusDispatch in Columbus, Ohio, a position Ihave held sinceSeptember 2005.Prior to that, I spentfive and a half yearsworking as a libraryassistant for theWisconsin StateJournal and TheCapital Times, thetwo daily newspapersin Madison, Wisconsin. There I had thegood fortune to work for Ron Larson, whoI credit with my decision to go to libraryschool and to become a news librarian.

I have a Bachelor’s degree inCommunication Arts, with an emphasis onfilm history and a Master of Arts degree inLibrary and Information Studies, bothfrom the University of Wisconsin-Madison.I am very active in the News Division,where I currently serve as Webmaster andam a contributing writer for News LibraryNews. In 2004, I was the recipient of theDivision’s Vormelker-Thomas StudentAward.

I served terms as secretary, President-Elect and President of the Wisconsin SLAchapter and will become President-Elect ofthe Central Ohio SLA chapter in January2007. This summer, I co-taught an onlinecourse, “Specialized Information Agenciesand Services,” based at the School ofInformation Sciences at the University ofTennessee-Knoxville, with the school’sdirector and my former professor, Dr. EdCortez. I am also a member of the school’sAdvisory Board.

The Division has been very good to meand I look forward to giving back in anyway I can.

ELECTIONS

Nominations for Division Board Announced

Disch

Larson



ELECTIONS

MIKE KNOOP

San Antonio Express-News

Michael Knoophas been the NewsResearch Editor atthe San AntonioExpress-News sinceNovember 2000.Under the guidanceof Kathy Foley, heleads a small butdynamic team oftwo researchers and

two archivists in a professional but funnewsroom where job candidates have foundthemselves dancing with mariachis. He ismost proud of his team’s ability to hustleand communicate with almost telepathicease. Mike enjoys working on the intranet,training, evangelizing about news librarian-ship and finding what cannot be found. Histeam hopes to launch the newsroom’s firstwiki this fall.

He completed his Masters of Librariesand Information Science at the Universityof Texas at Austin in 1999 and has alsoworked as a news researcher at the DallasMorning News. Prior to his career changeto librarianship Mike spent a decade inretail selling books, managing playgrounds,and remodeling K-Marts across the coun-try. Although relatively new to the newsbusiness, he is no stranger to news. As ayouth, Mike and family witness the IranianRevolution firsthand until fleeing to the rel-ative safety of Fort Worth, Texas.

In his spare time, Mike enjoys the city ofSan Antonio with his wife, two kids anddog. He also occasionally reviews music andbooks for the Express-News. He is obsessedwith cover tunes.

PUBLICATIONS CHAIR

GAIL HULDEN

The Oregonian

I am the NewsResearch Directorfor The Oregonian, amajor regionalnewspaper locatedin Portland, Oregon.I joined our librarystaff in 1987,became assistantlibrarian in 1988,

and was promoted to News ResearchDirector in 2000. I currently oversee a staffof four news researchers, write our in-houseresearch blog ORB, and contribute exper-tise and content to our newsroom intranet.I also serve on several newsroom commit-tees including the training steering com-mittee and the readership interactivity com-mittee.

I was one of three researchers whoworked with The Oregonian’s investigativeteam on a year-long investigation into theU. S. Immigration and NaturalizationService. The resulting series of stories,“Liberty’s Heavy Hand,” won the 2001Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

In recent past years, I worked with theOregon Newspaper Publishers Associationlobbyist and with Commercial InformationSystems to maintain a news media exemp-tion to Oregon Driver and Motor VehicleServices records. Through this effortOregon was one of very few states wherethe news media did retain access to bothdriver’s licenses and vehicle plates.

I also served on the Oregon Secretary ofState’s Oregon Centralized VoterRegistration Advisory Board. The boardwas responsible for providing the needs andrequirements analysis for the proposed sys-tem for the state of Oregon. The centralizedOregon voter database came to fruition thissummer.

I have been a featured speaker and pan-elist at IRE, Oregon-Online, and locallibrary association conferences. Our newsresearch team was featured in theJanuary/February 2002 issue of the IREJournal for their role in 9/11 terrorism cov-erage.

Besides my membership in SLA, I alsohold professional memberships inInvestigative Reporters and Editors andSociety of Professional Journalists.

As Publications Director, my interestand expertise in web creation, blogging,and multiple communications systemswould afford me the opportunity to giveback to an organization from whose manyresources I have long benefited. I’d be hon-ored to provide assistance in any way.

MARION PAYNTER

The Charlotte Observer

I received myMLS from RutgersUniversity in 1984.Most of my profes-sional life has beenspent in speciallibraries, includingtwo years as theI n f o r m a t i o nDirector for PAConsultants, a

British Information Technology consultingfirm, based in Princeton, NJ. I also workedfor several years at Educational TestingService as an Information Analyst, provid-ing reference service to staff and indexingnew tests for inclusion into the 25,000-item ETS Test Collection database inERIC.

In 1989 my family and I moved toSingapore for a three-year assignment formy husband’s employer. Because of immi-gration restrictions I could not work (formoney, anyway), so I became a profession-al volunteer instead. My biggest projectinvolved helping with the installation of a

Nominations for DivisionBoard AnnouncedContinued from previous page

Knoop

Hulden

Paynter



NLN FEATURE

Beginning in 2001, NRC’s director atthe time, Mike Bass, began upgrading thedepartment by hiring several other stafferswith solid news research skills:

Monika Mathur, from the BergenRecord, where she had worked her way upfrom intern to Assistant Specialist in theirComputer Assisted Reporting departmentduring four years there; Rhonda Shafner, aveteran researcher with two decades ofnews-related experience at NBC and ABC;Julie Reed, with ten years of research expe-rience in several university libraries, theBrooklyn Public Library system and theMitchell Madison Group, a managementconsulting firm; Barbara Sambriski, withten years of research/investigative experi-ence at global private intelligence firmsBishops Services and Sutton Associates;Jennifer Farrar, with 20-plus years ofresearch and management experience ininformation centers at Ogilvy PublicRelations and ad agency Ogilvy & Mather;and Judy Ausuebel, who had five years innews research with Fox News and the NewYork Post.

In June 2003, the AP got a new presi-dent and chief executive officer, TomCurley, who quickly called for the transfor-mation of the news cooperative whose rootstrace back to 1846. CEO Curley toldindustry executives that “we are transform-ing the AP from a wire service ... to an inter-active database and news network”.Exciting words for those of us in research.Meanwhile, Bass left NRC for a news man-ager assignment and Susan James took overas acting director, preparing the departmentfor a massive move across town.

In July 2004, the AP moved our NewYork headquarters to the Hudson Yards

area, at 450 West 33rd St., after more thansix decades in Rockefeller Center. Our newdirector, Lynn Dombek, came on board atthe same time, and AP’s news researchdepartment accelerated into high gear.

Dombek had more than 20 years’ expe-rience at major news organizations includ-ing the News Research Centers of NBCNightly News and ABC News. She alsoworked at Time Inc., where she held a num-ber of positions over the years, includingthe Assistant Director of the main ResearchCenter.

NEW PROCESSESWhen Dombek arrived at the AP, the

NRC team was basically reactive and assuch, significantly underutilized, except forHerschaft. We weren’t doing any outreachor proactively suggesting projects, and ourdays were filled with handling researchrequests from AP bureaus. The team wassequestered in a small, crowded, dusty roomat 50 Rockefeller Center, and although wemaintained a newsroom workstation andattended the daily morning budget meet-ings, we were otherwise mostly invisible toAP editorial staff.

The new AP headquarters has an open-newsroom floor plan, and for the first timein decades, all editorial units are located onthe same floor. As a result, NRC becamevisibly part of the news staff. Dombekimmediately took advantage of that prox-imity as well as the team’s experience andcapabilities, soliciting our ideas, and sug-gesting research projects and technology-driven research solutions to news editors.She put her staff ’s knowledge to work creat-ing much-needed marketing documenta-tion and letting NRC researchers operate astrainers for the editorial staff.

Dombek set out to align her goals forNRC with the larger strategic agenda of theAP. The AP’s challenge was to work effec-tively across its media platforms - text, pho-tos, online, television - and use the mostdynamic combination thereof to tell the

story. As news researchers, Dombek knewher staff would be fearless in their embraceof the different technologies, and she setabout making sure we all became expert inthe new tools needed to do our jobs well:spreadsheets, databases, RSS feeds, wikis,primary resource materials, an ability tosynthesize and analyze information, andcollaborating with reporters and editors,handing them wire-ready text or data.

Dombek also began encouragingresearchers and the AP editorial staff tothink differently about data and how to useit to provide context in reporting bothbreaking news and enterprise stories. NRCstaff started to provide more wire-readycopy, receive taglines, and become effectiveresearch partners with AP reporters and edi-tors. Dombek assigned researchers as ‘leads’to important projects, which engenderednew levels of professional responsibilities.We created innovative news and data prod-ucts which informed our stories at nearlyevery phase of reporting, such as a databasetallying reported individual deaths of Iraqicivilians in Iraq, and several databasesdetailing demographic information of thedetainees in Guantanamo Bay prison.

The NRC team began getting internalrecognition from senior AP staff due to ouroutreach initiatives. And then came a bighonor. We won our first “Beat of the Week”in March 2005. “BotW” is an editorial staffawards competition in which AP gives acash prize to the person or team that getsthe biggest breaking news story of the week.NRC won for a project with a reporter inBaghdad, in which we created a databasethat tracked casualties from car bombs overtime in Iraq, and provided the AP journal-ist with a statistical analysis of the murder-ous trend.

Since then, we’ve been credited in sever-al Beat of the Week wins and honorablementions, in partnership with other desks,by mining public records, analyzing exter-nal and NRC-created databases, and inves-tigative research by Herschaft. Article top-

Yowza! TwoTransformative Years inthe Energetic Life of TheAssociated Press NewsResearch CenterContinued from page 1



NLN FEATURE

BY JOHN PARSONS

DATABASE DEVELOPER, THE ASSOCIATED

PRESS NEWS RESEARCH CENTER

We’ve found innovativeways to use technologyto assist in the research

and reporting processes of the AP. Bycreating web-based databases andmaking use of readily available toolssuch as wikis and blogs, NRC hascreated a multitude of ways to col-lect, share and analyze information;to help organize teams of reportersworking on a common topic; and topresent material in more useful ways.

Here are some examples of recentprojects:

Guantanamo DocumentsWe used an open-source indexing

tool called Sphider (http://www.cs.ioc.ee/~ando/sphider/) to create afull-text, searchable database fromthe 3,000-plus pages of Pentagontranscripts relating to Guantanamodetainees obtained via a FOIArequest by AP reporters. Thisdatabase allowed the reporters toresearch names and stories and toanalyze the documents much morequickly than if they had been forcedto go through them individually.This project also made use of a blog,built on the popular blogging soft-ware WordPress (http://www.word-press.org), to help coordinate theanalysis of these documents and tocreate a clearinghouse for relatedinformation. Additionally, we set upprocesses for reporters to help them

methodically comb the transcriptsfor relevant information, and struc-ture it for further analysis. Before weintervened, the plan was to put theunsearchable documents on an FTPsite.

Wiki FarmWe created a Wiki Farm using

the open source wiki software PMWiki (http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki).A wiki is a simple web publishingplatform that makes it easy to putcontent online, and our wiki farmallows news departments throughoutthe AP to set up a wiki in minutes.The wikis are used to share informa-tion and documents, coordinate pro-jects and to make strategic plans.Examples include hurricane pre-paredness; an ongoing organ and tis-sue donation investigative series;tracking trials for multiple casesinvolving U.S. military personnelaccused in the deaths of Iraqi civil-ians; AP Planners throughout theworld; and Product Development.

Iraq Civilian CasualtiesDatabase

We started tracking casualtiescaused by car bombs in Iraq begin-ning July 2004, and in the face ofcontinuing casualties (and no officialaccounting of them) expanded thedataset in April 2005 to include allAP reported casualties in Iraq. Weconverted a spreadsheet of standard-ized data points (date, location, causeof death, type of Iraqi killed, notes)into a SQL database with web

administrative and user front ends.The user interface has links that willautomatically query the database fordaily, weekly, and monthly totals;and totals by location of incident andcause of incident. The initial datastructure was flexible enough toallow analysis by region, type of inci-dent, and civilian or security casual-ties - important tools to help the APunderstand the changing nature ofthe conflict and to report on it intel-ligently.

We have a similar product thattracks military deaths in Iraq and isavailable to all AP members. Anotherdatabase was used to collect informa-tion on all of the Cardinals underconsideration as successor to PopeJohn Paul II in the days before hisdeath.

We are always on the lookout fornew ways in which technology canbe used to help fulfill our mission.Future projects include the creationof rapid development tools usingRuby on Rails (http://www.rubyon-rails.org) that will be used to speedup the creation of web-baseddatabases; a new home page for theNews Research Center that will givethe researchers a place to shareresearch tips, sources and other infor-mation; and an update of our onlineresearch request tools that will makeit easier for reporters to find answersto questions which may have alreadybeen answered, and to ask for help tofind answers to those that have not.

NEWS RESEARCH DATABASES:Developed by the AP / NRC


NLN FEATURE

Borsen also has 5 Thesauruses for the following areas:1. Journalists

2. People

3. Businesses

4. Other Names

5. Subject Codes

Advertisements are not searchable. However, with importantadverts they can attach a summary with the same fields as search-able text. The web-based system has the .pdf and jumps attachedin one link. Error information is placed in red text in the textblock not in the .pdf files. They have one Archive available bothto the public and internally. They have been running BRS since1995, it went online in 1996. In 2001 internal and externaldatabases were combined. To date they have 234,000 text filesand 135,000 photos or images.

One of the most unique qualities of the Borsen Library is thatthe desks are hydraulic and can be elevated or lowered with thetouch of a button. This is to prevent backaches and injuries ashealth and safety of their staff is their first priority.

Borsen’s content is also available on Factiva, Thomson, andLexis/Nexis news databases world wide. Locally in Denmark it’savailable on the Danish news database Info Media. News inEnglish is available there as well, with a clickable link.

THE TWO NEWSPAPERS / BRS Search users The Royal Gazette/Mid-Ocean News vs Borsen

❖ Royal Gazette/Mid-Ocean News• Base platform - Windows Professional 2000

• BRS Basis - Front End System

• BRS Search 4.5 - Library Archives

• QuarkXpress - Pagination Process

• NetNews - Web based software package

• Staff - 1

❖ Borsen• Windows XP

• Home made software package - no name.

• BRS Search 9.0 (= Livelink Discovery Server) by Borsen

• QuarkXpress

• XML-interface or / and - NetAnswer

• Staff 6

While the software setup may vary, and no two newspapers

Pia Oltieng Hausen, Archive Assistant, working with the archive system.

Pia Oltieng Hausen, Archive Assistant, working with the hydraulic deskelevated.

GOING GLOBAL: Librarians in twocountries share knowledge about anarchiving system in commonContinued from page 5


companies operate exactly alike, the end goal is still the same. Weboth need to publish a newspaper daily and archive our content.

Deborah’ StoryThe Royal Gazette is a broadsheet newspaper. We have a circu-

lation of approximately 16,000 newspapers per day. We have 4Photographers, 6 Sub- Editors, 1 Editor and about 25 reportersincluding those that contribute columns, articles and informationon a week-to-week basis. We are presently using Windows


NLN FEATURE

Professional 2000 and some staff members have upgraded toWindows XP. The Library has not upgraded yet, however it willsoon. We started using BRS Search on May 31st 2001.

We have no typesetters or enhancers for the Library. If some-thing is missing I will have to locate it and attach it to the desig-nated area of the Archives. The Photography Department isresponsible for all photos entered into the system. However, fromtime to time we have bits and pieces of information missing orcredits written in the text of the story, which I will type in.

Advertisements are not searchable, and we cannot attach search-able text at this time. We have two separate Archives: one availableinternally and the second one on our web site. We have mergedour old Archives with the new; the grand total of objects includesa text archive of 300,000 stories, 75,000 pages and 156,000 pho-tos, graphs, charts, illustrations and graphic images. Errors have aseparate searchable field and are archived just like stories in our sys-tem, then attached to the particular story concerned, but not the.pdf files. We do not have any features that would change thecolour of the ink for error messages at this time. We also do nothave any Thesauruses at this time, although I would very much liketo have at least one.

Regarding IT support, The Royal Gazette IT team are very time-ly, true lifesavers and address all my issues immediately. However,when I post something to Issue Trak, which was set up bySAXoTECH, the response is not as quick as I would like it to be.However, if you are able to identify a person with the system whoknows and understands the software that you are using: hold on tothat person: gather all their contact information as they will guide,help and assist you in ways you could only imagine. The only prob-lem is, these people are few, far and in between and usually don’tstay with the company very long.

Lastly, updates mean changes in the software and while I am stilla one-person operation my biggest concern for the future is willupgrades result in software packages that I can maintain on myown. If not, we will definitely need to hire some additional assis-tance for me so that I can get through the day-to-day operation ona timely basis.

When I posted my message on Newslib six years ago, I basical-ly requested that anyone in the world who was presently usingSAXoTECH’s BRS Search software to contact me about theirLibrary Archiving software. Who would have though a chanceencounter would have resulted in a global connection half wayaround the world. Regarding R6, Margrethe agrees with our

Editor; Mr. William Zuill Jr. It’s still in the trial stages andSAXoTECH needs to sort out some of the technical difficultiesfirst. While neither one of us have software that have all the bellsand whistles we are both making the most what we have so that wecan access our information in a timely and organized fashion when-ever we need it.

Glossary of definitions1. BRS Basis - This is the frontend system software or the intro-

ductory software that the reporters use when they enter theirstories for the first time.

2. BRS Search - The Library Archiving software

3. QuarkXpress - Used for the Pagination Process or where thestories are placed on the Pages of the newspaper.

4. NetNews - The web-based software used to publish stories toour web site www.theroyalgazette.bm

5. SAXoTECH - The company who produces the SAXoPRESSsoftwares.

6. SAXoPRESS Publishing System - All the softwares that makethe printing and documentation of the newspaper possible -BRS Basis, BRS Search, NetNews, QuarkXpress, AdobeAcrobat, MS Word are all used to get the information placedon the pages.

7. Tabloid - Newspaper that folds vertically e.g. The BermudaSun.

8. Broad Sheet - Newspaper that folds horizontally eg. The RoyalGazette and The Mid-Ocean News.

9. Enhancer - Person who preps the newspaper content in orderfor the information to properly archived.

10. R6 - Most current SAXoTECH publishing software available.

Deborah Charles, News Librarian of The Royal Gazette and Mid-OceanNews Library working with the BRS Search Archives.

GOING GLOBAL: Librarians in twocountries share knowledge about anarchiving system in commonContinued from previous page


ics included Guantanamo Bay detainees,Costa Rican Elections, and NARA (U.S.National Archives and RecordsAdministration) secretly sealing docu-ments. The team has also collected morethan 40 taglines so far during 2006.

Additionally, Julie Reed mined federaldata sources to assist AP journalist JustinPritchard with his series, “Dying to Work,”an investigation of the high rate of job-related deaths for Mexican workers in theUnited States. Reed was credited on theseries, which won the 2004 George PolkAward for Labor Reporting, and attendedthe winners’ luncheon at Pritchard’s invita-tion.

In addition to numerous newsroom pro-jects, Dombek took a lead role in the AP’staxonomy initiative, creating the structureand staff positions for a new department,Information Management, and helping tohire its director and taxonomists.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIESIn late 2005, Dombek reallocated an

open NRC staff position into a DatabaseDevelopment/Special Projects Managerrole, signaling her clear commitment to sus-tainable development for research and newsgathering over time. John Parsons joinedthe team in this capacity in December2005. He had worked at Time Inc., OvenDigital, IBM, and the New York PublicLibrary in a variety of roles, primarily aslead in Web development projects involv-ing information-rich resources. He wasinstrumental in guiding us to model ourprocesses on the concepts of AgileProgramming.

Parsons hit the ground running at theAP, reconfiguring our technological infras-tructure, and working closely withresearchers and AP staff to create tools thatenable reporting and communication onindividual and cross-team projects. AP staffhad been stymied by the lack of a commonplatform they could use interactively toshare information. Together, Parsons andDombek created a ‘wikifarm’ using opensource software that is now in use through-out the organization. Wikis gained instantpopularity for use as planners by news desksaround the world, and AP editors in print,photos, television and broadcast are nowable to keep track of staffers’ movementsand to share contacts, story ideas, back-ground information and travel and creden-tialing advice.

With our carefully planned technicalcapabilities, we’ve been able to respond vir-tually on-demand to breaking newsrequests, as in the case of the Guantanamodocuments site. The site was created in oneday and enabled reporters to mine exclusivecontent and move it quickly on the Weband wire. We plan on continuing thisapproach by investing in hardware and soft-ware (mainly open-source) to support dif-ferent environments, and a variety of dataformats.

Our effectiveness comes from staffmembers’ combination of journalisticresearch, technology and knowledge man-agement skills, and our ability to leverageall three tracts simultaneously. The NewsResearch Center is now uniquely qualifiedwithin the AP to offer a variety of knowl-edge-based technology solutions to supportour journalism, because of our strong andvaried skill sets, and our team-basedapproach to projects.

In addition to technological successesand creating original news content, NRC’sbehind-the-scenes work drew this com-ment from an AP bureau news editor: “It’shard for the casual reader to see the resultsof your effort ...your staff ’s research ensure

that the very theme of the story ... was cor-rect and on target. To me, that kind of helpin reporting is invaluable.”

THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENTThe crowning achievement came in

September 2006, when, having been nom-inated by her team, Dombek won a much-coveted Gramling Achievement Award,which comes with a cash prize of $10,000.This annual award, now in its 13th year, isgiven to individuals whose recent achieve-ments have helped to advance the AP’s mis-sion as the world’s premier provider of newsand information.

The Gramling Award points to how farthe NRC team has come in just the pasttwo years.

Giving the award to a researcher wasunprecedented, but written endorsementsfrom supporters of the nominating entrycalled the idea “a no-brainer.” The APRecognition Awards Selection Committeewrote, “Lynn Dombek, Director of theNews Research Center, was honored fortransforming that department ... into anintegral part of AP journalism across allplatforms and departments. Dombek andher team of researchers take the lead inusing research in everything from urgentbreaking news to long-term investigativework, and often serve as a nexus for differ-ent departments covering the same event.”

This recognition helps raise the visibilityand perceived value of research as a newscomponent, and underscores the commit-ment of the Associated Press to producenews products of the highest possibleintegrity. Dombek insists that her Gramlingaward honors all the hard work of the NewsResearch Center team, saying she feelslucky to have been given the opportunity towork with such an outstanding group ofresearchers, and that she was able to accom-plish what she did only with the coopera-tion and hard work of the entire depart-ment.

NLN FEATURE


Yowza! TwoTransformative Years inthe Energetic Life of TheAssociated Press NewsResearch CenterContinued from page 14

and those remaining were eventually sold. Kathy typically worked a schedule of 8

a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, but remembersreceiving occasional calls at home if some-one was having trouble finding something.There were a few times as well when a ques-tion required her to go back into work.

The morning after an election alsomeant a different schedule. Kathy would goin as early as 4 a.m. “to pull the winners’photos and to assist with stories about theresults. When I pulled photos, I would alsoorganize them into categories, for example,judicial candidates,” she says.

In 1990, Kathy left the library for sever-al years to work as a paginator on the copydesk. She worked from 3 to 11 p.m., buteventually grew tired of working nights. In1997, an assistant’s position opened up inthe library and Kathy decided to returnthere. “I missed the people and working inthe library,” she says.

Working at the Dispatch has had itsshare of perks; among them encounterswith the famous, both human and non-human. Kathy remembers meeting theoriginal Morris the Cat and his handler

when Morris was being photographed inthe paper’s studio and seeing Elsie the Cowin the lobby when she came to town.

Arnold Schwarzenegger also visited theDispatch and waved as he walked past thelibrary. “I thought he looked little,” Kathysays now. She met presidential candidateJimmy Carter one day on her way to lunch.“I shook his hand, he was very nice.”

Kathy also remembers July 1, 1971,which marked the Dispatch’s 100th anniver-sary. “There was a big cake and telegramswere read aloud in the newsroom.”

Other moments have been more sober-ing, among them the January 1975 planecrash that killed the paper’s publisher,Edgar T. Wolfe, Jr. and a 1970 strike by thepaper’s truck drivers that suspended publi-cation for nearly two weeks. “We couldonly go in the building’s front entrance,”Kathy says, and because no paper was beingpublished, “news bulletins and photos wereposted in the front window.” Kathy alsorecalls the time an electrical fire started inthe paper’s adjoining building and no onebothered to come tell the library staff whatwas happening. “Not one of the smokealarms worked,” she says. “There wassmoke coming up outside the windows andwe wondered what was going on. Finally asupervisor came in and told us to get thehell out.”

Kathy currently works Sunday throughThursday and is responsible for text andphoto archiving, as well as the maintenanceof a homicide database that resides on thelibrary’s intranet. She has worked with JimHunter for nearly 33 years and says “Jim isnot only my boss, I also consider him afriend.”

As for the job itself, there is “somethingdifferent every day and I feel like the libraryis my second home.”

Author’s Note: My hopes are that this will be the firstof many such profiles to be periodically featured inNews Library News; likewise that you enjoy readingthis piece as much as I enjoyed conducting the inter-view and putting it to paper. Finally, if you or some-one in your library is interested in being profiled,contact me at [email protected]. I’d love to hearfrom you.

Yowza! TwoTransformative Years inthe Energetic Life of TheAssociated Press NewsResearch CenterContinued from previous page

And so, we’re proud to say in summarythat the NRC team currently fields over300 research requests monthly, many ofour own derivation. Researchers partici-pate in editorial meetings, produce datasetsthat inform reporting and create originalcontent for the wire, Web and graphics. AsDombek often says when something goodhappens, “Yowza!”


Barbara believes Carolyn has thetechnical talent, the energy, and the ded-ication to maintain NewsLib’s best prac-tices, its current subscriber access andprotocols, as well as to help chartNewsLib’s future.

Emily Glenn just started a positionwith the Association of College andUniversity Housing Officers Inter-national (ACUHO-I). as their corporatelibrarian. She maintains their library andarchive of materials, answers questionsfor the membership and assist withresearch and writing for the association’smagazine, Talking Stick.

Paul McCardell who is the loneresearcher at the Baltimore Sun was men-tioned on Episode Six of The Wire.Someone is looking for a dummy photo.And a character named Norm Wilson(named after a long time night editor atThe Sun) says,” call photo researcherPaul McCardell at the Sun papers.”

A LONGTIME LIBRARIAN: KATHY

WAXLERContinued from page 9

PEOPLEContinued from page 6

Nominations for DivisionBoard AnnouncedContinued from page 13

new integrated library system at theAmerican School.

I’ve been at the Charlotte Observerfor 12 years; the last 10 of them asLibrary Manager.

Outside the newsroom, I am proudof two professional events during therecent past: my presentation at the 2004continuing education conference session“Deadline Due-Dilligence: People-Finding”, and my selection as a delegateto the “Libraries in the 21st Century”international seminar held in 2004 inSalzburg, Vienna.

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