GNED 008 EUREKA!
INFORMATION SKILLS FOR
LIFE-LONG LEARNING
NEWS SOURCES
Eunice WONG
Email: lbeunice@ust.hk
HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER




Periodical publication conveying news & comment
on current events.
Handwritten news-sheets were posted in public
places in ancient Rome under such titles as Acta
Diurna (Daily Events) around 59BC.
The invention of printing facilitated the growth of
newspapers. Papers printed from movable type
started to appear in Germany, Italy, and the
Netherlands in the first half of the 17th century.
Daily Courant (launched in 1702) was the first
regular daily newspaper published in England.
Source:
"newspaper" World Encyclopedia. Philip's, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University
Press. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 5 May 2009
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t142.e8108>
2
NEWSPAPER & RESEARCH
Newspapers cover:
 Current events (financial, political or social) at local,
national, regional or international level
 Feature articles that investigate particular topics
 Obituaries (訃聞) & biographical information
 Press releases – individuals, government or nongovernment organizations, companies, etc.
 Reviews – book, electronics, movie, music, restaurant,
software, etc.
3
NEWS ARTICLES ARE USEFUL IN
FINDING:


Consumer information
Facts & statistics:


people/organizations/government /places/events
Historical developments of social or political issues,
etc.
4
WHERE & HOW TO FIND NEWS INFORMATION?
Think about what you want (your needs):
 Currency


Location


Up-to-date or historical?
Local (HK), national (China), regional (Asia Pacific) or
international?
Content
A known article from a specific paper or articles on a
particular topic?
 Subject focus



Wall Street Journal: international & national news with a
business and financial perspective.
Financial Times: international business, finance, economic and
political news
5
NEWS ON THE INTERNET
Cons:
 Online version ≠ print version
 Free registration (Washington Post) or paid
subscription (South China Morning Post) may be
required.
 Limited access to older articles (archives)


Paid subscription or direct purchase (per article).
Primitive search features.
6
NEWS ON THE INTERNET
Pros:
 News sites such as Google News, Yahoo! News , 明
報即時新聞 provide continuously updated news.
 Receive news updates by email or by subscribing to
the site's feed (
)using a news
aggregator (definition).
7
NEWS AT THE HKUST LIBRARY

News sources may be in different formats:
paper
 microform
 electronic



Library Catalog: call number search for "newspaper"
to get an alphabetical list of all the newspapers we
subscribe to.
Search news databases to find citations & abstracts
(summaries), or full-text of news articles.
Advanced search features: consult database's own online
help or guides compiled by the Library
 Search across different newspapers
 Archival articles available

8
SELECTED NEWS DATABASES
Current – International
 LexisNexis Academic
~ 6,000 English language news sources: newspapers, news
wires (electronic newsletters), magazines and broadcast
transcripts.
 New York Times (1980- ), Economist (1975- ), South China
Morning Post (1992- ), etc.
 ProQuest: U.S. National Newspaper Abstracts (alumni
e-resources)
 Full-text of New York Times (1980- ), USA Today (1997-)
& Wall Street Journal (1984- )
 Factiva.com (HK Central Library, City Hall Public Library)
 Global news and business information through Dow Jones
Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing.

9
SELECTED NEWS DATABASES
LexisNexis Academic News Search
 Location of terms
Headline: article title
 Lead paragraphs: first few paragraphs
 Indexing: major concepts discussed in the document
 Byline: author

Occurrence: how many times the term appear
 Connector

AND: all terms must appear
 OR: any one or all of the terms can appear
 Within: how close the terms should appear (5 – 25 words
apart, same sentence or paragraph)


Wildcard ( ! ) : variant endings of the same root

pollut! gets pollute, polluted, pollution, etc.
10
IN-CLASS EXERCISE 1


Suppose you are thinking of buying a Panasonic
Lumix LX3 digital camera (Sony Ericsson C905
mobile phone, etc.), find the latest reviews on this
product.
News search:







Location of the terms: anywhere, HL & LP or HL only
Connectors: AND, OR, within….
How many times the search terms appear
Source type
Date range
What does the review say about it (product
features) ?
Will you buy it? Why or why not?
11
IN-CLASS EXERCISE 2


Search for news about HSBC holdings
Focus your search:

Add additional keywords:




profit!, china, etc.
term variations: subprime/sub prime mortgage,
Subject – company strategy, mergers & acquisitions, etc.
What can you learn about this company from the
news?

Profit? Rating? Future plan/expansion?
12
SELECTED NEWS DATABASES
Current – Local
 電子剪報 = WiseNews (1998- )
Full-text of local newspapers: South China Morning Post,
The Standard, 蘋果日報，信報財經新聞，香港經濟日報，明報,
東方日報，星島日報，太陽報，大公報 , etc.
 Also articles from selected local magazines, newspapers &
magazines from China, Macau and Taiwan.
 Browse by categories
 WiseSearch







林尚義 生平 = 林尚義 and生平
(活化 /保育) 嘉咸街 = (活化 or 保育) and 嘉咸街
Location of terms: HL and content or HL only
Proximity of terms: within sentence/paragraph/whole document
Company Search
Search options
13
SELECTED NEWS DATABASES
Historical – International
 Archives - The New York Times [Open Access]


Search for more than 15 million articles published from
1851 - 1980. Limited preview of each article, PDFs
available for purchase.
Google News Archives [Open Access]
Collection of historical archives from major newspapers
& magazines.
 Search results include both free (such as BBC News &
Time Magazine) and fee-based (such as Washington
Post Archives & New York Times Archives) articles.

14
SELECTED NEWS DATABASES
Historical – Local
 Old HK Newspapers [Open Access]
Use Internet Explorer
 HK Public Libraries' Multimedia Information System.
 Images of 11 HK newspapers published from 1853 to 1991:
香港工商日報、華僑日報、遐邇貫珍、香港華字日報、香港華
字晚報、大公報、China Mail、Hong Kong Daily Press、
Hong Kong Sunday Herald、Hong Kong Telegraph and
Hong Kong Weekly Press.

15