InfoTrac Custom Newspapers

Objectives:

• Cover the major features of InfoTrac Custom Newspapers.
• Learn how to perform a Keyword and Advanced Search in this database.

Scope:

• InfoTrac Custom Newspapers provides access to the full-text articles of more than 400 U.S. newspapers and 60 international English-language newspapers. Updated daily.

Use:

• Local, National and International Current Events.
• First-hand accounts of current and historical events.

Strengths:

• Articles are provided in full-text and are completely indexed, including proper names.

Weaknesses:

• Obituaries are not indexed by newspaper section; Graphics from articles are not available.

Major Texas Newspapers:

Search Types:

• Keyword – finds articles that have your search word(s) in the title, citation, abstract OR text of the article. Articles are displayed from most recently published to oldest.
• Relevance – like a Keyword search, but results are displayed according to the frequency of use of the search term(s) in the text of the article.
• Advanced – more experienced searchers have the opportunity to use complex search expressions in combinations with one another in order to more precisely focus the search.

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Sample Keyword Search

If a client wants to get an idea of what kind of general news coverage there is concerning former presidential candidate John Kerry and his service in Vietnam, a general Keyword search is a good place to begin.

Instructions:

1. Decide on your key terms. In this case, the terms kerry and vietnam were used. The connector “and” was used, because we are looking for articles that have both the words kerry AND vietnam in the article.
2. We can limit the search by date of publication, looking only for articles written in 2004.
3. We can limit the search by newspaper section, looking only for articles in the News or Editorial sections of the paper.

Search Limiters:

You can limit the scope of your search by using search limiters. These can help you find more exactly what you are looking for and narrow the search down to a more reasonable number of results. The following are ways you can limit what will be searched:

Search by:

• Title of publication
• Headline of article
• Newspaper Section
• Author of article
• Text of article (e.g. News, Sports)

Search Operators And Search Tips:

* Truncation – finds variations of a word. Substitutes for any number of characters found at the end of a word. Ex. endors* finds either endorse or endorsed or endorsement or endorsements.

? Wildcard – finds variations of the spelling of a word. Substitutes for exactly one character found within a word. Ex. capit?l finds either capital or capitol.

! Wildcard – finds the singular or plural of a word. Substitues for one or no characters found at the end of a word. Ex. athlete! finds either athlete or athletes.

“ ” Quotes - use quotes to search for an exact phrase. Ex. “John Kerry” finds that name exactly.

and Logical Operators (Boolean commands) – kerry AND vietnam finds both terms in the article.

or kerry OR vietnam finds articles containing the word kerry or the word vietnamor both.

not kerry NOT vietnam finds articles having the word kerry but not having the word vietnam.

Special Feature:

• Includes online Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.

Printing:

• PDF – prints the article as it appeared in its original newspaper publication.
• Plain text – removes all formatting from the article and simply prints the text.

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Sample Advanced Search

If your client wants to find out how campaign advertisements and news coverage on his service in Vietnam affected Kerry in opinion polls, an Advanced search might be more appropriate.

Instructions:

• In an advanced search, you can indicate where to look for certain terms. Ex. The words kerry and opinion or poll need to be in the titles of articles searched. The words vietnam and record do not need to be in the title, but do need to be somewhere in the article.
• We can use the search operator “!” with the word poll, to look for both the words poll and polls.
• Use Limiters as you would in a Keyword or Relevance search.

Extra Help: Take a Guided Tour of InfoTrac at www.galegroup.com/CustomNews/tour.htm

This page was reviewed by Sophronia Bruno in Spring 2007.
This page was reviewed by Brent Lipinski in Spring 2006.
INF 382S: Library Instruction and Information Literacy, taught by Dr. Loriene Roy
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin