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By Richard Nelsson
 The recent revival
of 'Alphabetical Order,' Michael Frayn's 1975 play about a cuttings
library of a local newspaper, provided a rare glimpse of how news
organisations used to run their archives.
Librarians literally cut out articles
out from the printed press and then filed them in a subject system
known only to them. Journalists came along to the library, or 'cuts'
as it was usually known, (often hidden away in the basement), looking
for a telling quote, a few facts for a feature, or simply somewhere
to escape to for a bit of a chat.
Unlike the shambolic, disordered
library of Frayn's play though, this could be an efficient system
with staff finding information on most subjects within minutes. The
cuttings collection, combined with the encyclopedic knowledge of
those running it, was the 'memory' of the organisation.
However, with the arrival
of online information in the early 1980s, and the Internet a decade
later, news libraries began to shed jobs. Events over the past year
have seen many media companies closing their information centres
altogether, particularly in the US. Guardian News & Media (GNM)
though still maintains a strong library.
At present the department consists of
six full time researchers who provide a research service for the
Guardian, Observer and guardian.co.uk editorial staff. Work includes
anything from fact checking, background research to compiling
information panels. There are also four graduate trainees who archive
the papers for electronic hosts.
There are two key reasons for the
survival of the library: the company's firm belief in the need for a
research library and the ability of the department to adapt and
innovate over the past 25 years.
World Reporter: 1983-2000
Fleet Street's
first exposure to a full-text searchable data host took place, in an
upstairs room in the street itself, in early 1983, with a
demonstration of Datasolve's World Reporter (later to become FT
Profile). The Guardian library was an early adopter of online, with
Helen Martin, its manager, seeing its great potential. Research
showed that end-user access actually increased the usage of the
department and staff were able to utilise and share its advanced
searching skills. During this period librarians became more
proactive, carrying our research, rather than just handing over a
cuttings file.
In late 1980s, the department developed
a pre-emptive service called lib-wir, made available to all staff via
the old Atex editorial system. This was in many ways a prototype
intranet, consisting of mini databases on topics such as IRA
bombings, rail accidents etc.
Internet use at the Guardian started in
1992 and, with the arrival of a coveted ISDN link in 1996, the
library was one of the first departments to start using it on a
regular basis. With many journalists wary of this ‘massive database
that can answer questions on any subject', as one put it,
librarians were able to position themselves as expert searchers and
trainers. An intranet was started in 1996 to guide sceptical
reporters to trusted sites.
Research & Information:
2001-2008
As part of a
company-wide process review, every aspect of the library's work was
examined in 2001. Thankfully the review concluded that the department
was an 'essential component in the creation of quality journalism.'
It consolidated much of the work that had been done over the past
decade and key recommendations included: renaming the department
Research & Information (R&I), librarians, or researchers as
most preferred to be called, to start sitting with their users on the
main news desks; a research byline should be given where R&I work
appeared in the paper.
Slowly but (usually) surely the idea of
having an in-house research team doing much more than just delivering
scores of paper or electronic cuttings began to be appreciated by a
greater number of journalists, and, importantly, senior editors.
Despite everyone having access to the internet and a newspaper text
database, R&I continued to be in demand.
Kings Place: 2008-
December 2008, GNM moved
from its base in Farringdon Road, London, where it occupied 23 floors
over five buildings, to Kings Place, one new building, close to Kings
Cross station, consisting of three and a half floors.
This was much more than just a physical
move. The Guardian, Observer, and guardian.co.uk not only came
together in one location but moved from a state of amiable
cooperation to full-blown integration. The large open plan floors
were designed to encourage cooperation and conversation. Rather than
the traditional newsdesk arrangement, the newsroom in Kings Place is
organised around content areas or specialist 'pods' across both
newspapers and the web. So, for example, the Consumer pod will
produce content - be it news, in-depth features, blogs, podcasts,
that could appear on any of the GNM platforms.
R&I had to work out
how to fit in with this new structure. The first change was to
‘embed' more researchers in the pods. As well as having greater
visibility, it allows them to hear what people are working on and
offer ideas about good sources of information or carry out
complicated, time consuming searches. Like journalists, a good media
librarian will have his own special contacts, many built up through
the Association of UK Media Librarians, to call upon for assistance.
Researchers are often asked to write background panels or sidebars
that sit alongside the main story.
Built into this though is flexibility
so if a big story breaks researchers can be moved to another job. A
downside is that members of the department don't get to see other so
much, thus reducing the chance to bounce ideas off each other. But
these are early days and we're still working out what works best.
Green pod
A researcher attends
the weekly planning meetings and is able to offer background research
on certain areas that journalists may not have considered requesting.
She also uploads Green Agenda
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/greenagenda),
an environmental events round-up, directly to the website.
Graphics
R&I supplies, and organises, a lot
of the data needed to create the many infographics that appear in the
papers and on the web. Sitting in the heart of the pod allows the
researcher to work with the graphics team as maps etc are being
created.
Open information access
A crude description
of the difference between librarians and journalists used to be that
librarians were eager to share their information whilst journalists
hoarded and kept it to themselves. Things, though, appear to be
changing. In March 2009 Open Platform, a service that allows partners
to reuse the GNM's content and data for free, was launched, weaving
it 'into the fabric of the Internet'.
One part of this is a content
application programming interface (API) that allows web developers to
build applications and services using Guardian content; the other is
a datastore that contains datasets curated by Guardian editors. R&I
has been involved in maintaining some of latter. For example, a
graphic about swine flu looked like this:
http://digbig.com/5bactq
but the regularly updated data behind
it can be found here: http://digbig.com/5bactr
Similarly, while a project on a MPs
expenses spreadsheet was extremely time consuming to compile, the end
result allowed easy user access to the actual information:
http://digbig.com/5bacts
The data being available here: http://digbig.com/5bactt
ResearchNet
From the original idea of directing
users to reliable sites, the department's intranet is now a portal
for commercial reference tools such as Who's Who, events diaries such
as arts, foreign and environment, which were created in response to
users requests, and a few news specials. The latter are timelines and
information about events in the news such as knife crime or an Iraqi
casualty list. This is then published directly to the web via the
datablog.
Long term projects
Increasingly R&I works on larger
projects, the more successful being when the department is consulted
from the planning stage onwards. This enables researchers to suggest
sources, advise about what they think is possible, or not possible to
find. The recent World Fact country profiles, a series of booklets
containing information on 195 countries
(http://digbig.com/5bactw)
involved hours of research, plus double-checking as there were on
average, 96 facts in each country 's profile. Other examples include
Freedom of Information investigations and the recent TaxGap project.
We use Google Docs for these projects.
The main benefit is that all involved (editors, subeditors,
researchers, graphics) can work on a project simultaneously, rather
than bouncing updated spreadsheets or files back and forth. R&I
works in parallel with journalists at the investigative point of a
project, rather than doing the groundwork and then simply handing it
all over to them.
The Future
With editorial budgets being squeezed
ever tighter, R&I has to prove its value to the organisation.
However, maintaining a research library is not just an editorial
indulgence. It is becoming increasingly clear that the news
organisations that will survive the current downturn will be those
offering reliable, qualitiative, and above all, accurate reporting.
As Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist (http://www.craigslist.org),
recently said, "News organizations earn trust by visibly doing a
lot of fact-checking." Similarly, Emily Bell, GNM director of
digital content, has written that the "media industry is in dire
need of quantitative tightening." There is just "too much stuff"
and publishers should concentrate on doing less, but better.
This suggests that the research skills
- online searching, knowing the best sources, organising the
information etc - of librarians are needed more than ever. Of course
it would be extremely naive to ignore the fact that many journalists
are perfectly happy doing their own online research. This is fine as
it frees up researchers to work on more in-depth, and ultimately more
rewarding work - a trend that we're beginning to notice. Beyond this
there will probably be more publishing data straight to the web and
with this new web-based skills will have to be learned.
Related reading
'Alphabetical Order'
- http://digbig.com/5bactx
History
of media libraries - http://tiny.cc/FWmYw (news libraries chapter)
Atex -
http://digbig.com/5bacty
Kings
Place: http://digbig.com/5bacwa
Open platform:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform
TaxGap
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/series/tax-gap
Emily
Bell's piece -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/09/emily-bell-media
Craiglist
quote: http://digbig.com/5bacwb
By Richard Nelsson
Richard Nelsson is Information Manager,
GNM, and the current Association of UK Media Librarians (AUKML)
Chair. He contributed to the reference works, British Librarianship
and Information Work:
1991-2000, and 2001-2005, and is the
editor of the Guardian Book of Mountains, and Double Measures: The
Guardian Book of Drinking. His new book, Those Who Dared, will be
published in October.
FUMSI articles by Richard Nelsson »
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