ResearchBuzz

At the end of October I mentioned that the Guardian was getting a digital archive. The announcement mentioned that there would be a free access period but not many other details were mentioned.

I have two notes I want to add to that. The first is that there’s a post in the Guardian’s
news blog reflecting on the opening of the archive and providing pointers to information and topics that might be found interesting.

The second is the offer for the free access. If you go to the digital archive you’ll see a link on the lower left for a free 24-hour pass. If you click on that link you’ll get details on how to receive a free 24-hour pass. You’ll need to register with the site to take advantage of this offer.

Have fun exploring!

Next Saturday (November 3) Guardian News and Media will launch two digital archives — one for The Guardian from 1821-1975, and one for The Observer from 1900-1975. (These are both UK papers.) While this is an extensive launch, it’s not complete — the rest of the archive will launch in early 2008 and will include the Guardian from 1821-2003 and the Observer from 1791-2003.

You can learn more about the upcoming archives at guardian.co.uk/archive . The archive will be fully-searchable and viewable in full-page and individual-article levels. What I find interesting is that access to the content does not seem to be available on a per-article basis; instead, timed passes are available. A 24-hour pass is £7.95 while a one-month pass is £49.95. (There’s a sale on passes until the end of November; passes cost 50% of the prices I’ve listed here.)

The announcement of the new archive mentioned that there would be a free 24-hour access period, but the archive page doesn’t mention when that will be — I’ll keep my eyes out. In the meantime, if you want a sample of what the archive will look like but don’t want to spend the scratch, you can check out a sample issue.

Topix was extremely small-location focused when small-location focus wasn’t cool, and it paid off — Topix, with its news that’s browsable by zip code, is great when you’re trying to do geographic searching or information. They’ve added some new features that don’t do much for the research end but are fun to play with.

From the front page of Topix (http://www.topix.com/) you’ll see that the top of the page has handpicked top stories — three of ‘em. (If you’re less interested in top picks and just want to see what’s hot on the site, check out http://www.topix.com/popular/topstories.) Well, at the moment two and an add for Topix’s polls, which are another new feature.

The polls cover a variety of topics and are available at http://www.topix.com/poll/hot . Each poll also has a forum for comments. Put on your asbestos footie pjs.

Finally, local news pages now have integrated weather and traffic reports. That sounds very 1999-cheesy, but I actually found it useful, especially the traffic. Now if the weather only offered ten-day forecasts.

If you’re looking for information on a very specific geographical area in the US, and as an added bonus would like the thoughts and opinions of a lively community, check out Topix.