WARNING: This page is a sample of news library INTRANET. Some links do not
work and information may not be current.
The News & Observer Text Archive
Table of Contents
Logging On
Keyword Searching
Plurals and Truncation
Date Searching
Field Searching
Parenthesis
Printing and Downloading
Logging Off
HELP!
For help using the N&O Archive, please call News Research at 4580 or
send a zmail message to RESEARCH.
LOGGING ON
There are three ways to access the N&O Archive:
- Start up Netscape (on a Mac, it should be under the Apple menu; on a PC, it should be in the Netscape window.)
- Click on Search the text archive.
- Click on the radio button beside the year/database you want to
search.
MacWais - from any Macintosh in the
newsroom
- Click on the Apple in the upper left corner of your screen.
- Locate MacWAIS and click on it.
- Click on FILE and choose NEW QUESTION.
- Select sources by clicking once beside the desired year(s) you want to
search or click on Select All.
WinWais - from any PC in the newsroom
- Start up Windows and locate the WinWAIS 2.3 window.
- Double click on the WinWAIS 2.3 icon (it looks like a blue globe
with a lightning bolt running across it)
- This will put you at the WAIS Query screen.
- Click once on File (upper left corner), then click once on
Select Sources.
- Double click on the years you want to search (so that they appear in the
top box), and click on Done.
BASIC KEYWORD SEARCHING
Type your search request in the white box or question window (in the
"Tell Me About" window on MacWais and WinWais). Then click on
Search. With the following instructions in mind, type in the
individual words you want to find.
Simple Boolean Searching
Two or more words in the same
document................. and .............. clinton and
whitewater
One word or another or both.................................
or ................ trash or garbage
Exclude a word from a search............................... not
............... hillary not (health w/2 care)
Two or more words near each other........................ w/
................ christian w/2 coalition
A word mentioned in a story many times .................. atleast#(
) ..... atleast30(fetzer)
Stop Words
Don't use very common words like "the", "after", and "cannot". If you
search for one of these stopwords,
the server will not return any results.
Proximity Searching
With this feature, you can search for nuclear w/10 waste to find all
stories that have nuclear and waste within 10 words of each other. If
the order of the two words is important, then nuclear pre/10 waste
will find all stories that have nuclear up to 10 words before waste.
Proximity also works within fields; for instance, byline=(joyce w/2 clark)
will find every story with a byline that has joyce within 2 words of clark.
Note that you must use parentheses around the words you want to look for
in the field. For more information and examples of proximity searching,
click here.
Nested Booleans
The boolean operators and, or, and not can be used with parentheses to
make very precise searches. For example, to look for stories about Bosnia
that mention either Bill Clinton or Bob Dole, but not both of them, you
can search for bosnia and ((bill and clinton) or (bob and dole) not (bill
and clinton and bob and dole)).
"AtLeast" searches
These searches allow you to find stories that are more likely to be
specifically about a topic or person than a story where it's just
mentioned once or twice. For example, atleast20(clinton) finds
every story that has at least 20 occurrences of clinton. "atleast" has to
be all lower-case, and there cannot be any spaces between "at", "least",
and the number -- at least 20 clinton will not work! For more
information and examples of atleast# searching, click here.
PLURALS AND TRUNCATION
The archive system does not recognize
plurals if you search for a word in the singular, so you need to either
put all variations of the word in your search or truncate the keyword
you're searching. Use the asterisk (*) to truncate a word.
Truncated words will not be highlighted in the search results. If you want
to search for all words that have the same beginning, use stemming. For
instance, if you want to find all stories that contain words that start
with fire, you can search for fire*, which will match words like
fire, fires, fireproof, firetruck, etc.
(pencil or pencils) and kindergarten
OR
pencil* and kindergarten
DATE SEARCHING
For a specific date:
date=19940704 ... for July 4, 1994
date=19921225 ... for Christmas day, 1992
For a particular month and year:
ym=9301 ... for the entire month of January, 1993
ym=9505 ... for the entire month of May, 1995
For a date range:
ym > 9401 and ym < 9406 ... for stories between January, 1994 and
June, 1994 (does not include January & June stories in the set)
ym > 9400 and ym < 9413 ... for stories from January 1,
1994 through December 31, 1994.
FIELD SEARCHING
You can search on the following fields:
- access
The access number of the story. Access numbers have
the format CCYYJJJNNN, where CC is the century, YY is the year, JJJ is the
Julian date (with January 1 as 0), and NNN is a unique number assigned to
a story every day.
- byline
The reporter(s) who wrote the article.
byline=(glascock or buggs) would match articles written by Ned
Glascock or Shannon Buggs.
- column
The name of a
column, e.g. After Hours, On the Beat. column=(tar and heel and
week) would give you a list of the "Tar Heel of the Week" articles.
- date
The date the story was published. Date is always 8
digits, with the first four representing the year, the fifth and sixth
the month, and the seventh and eight the day of the month.
date=19940907 would match articles written on September 7, 1994.
date>19940624 and date<19940628 would match
articles written between June 24th and 28th (not inclusive).
- dateline
From what city the article was posted.
dateline=(chapel and hill) will match articles written from Chapel
Hill. Note: before April 1993, articles written from Raleigh did not have
a dateline field.
- dayofweek
On what day the story ran.
dayofweek=sunday will find every story printed on a Sunday.
- edition
Durham, Orange, State, or Final.
- headline
The headline of the story.
- length
The length of the story, in column-inches.
length>30 will return all stories longer than 30 column-inches. In
this system, one column-inch is equivalent to 200 characters (letters,
numbers, punctuation marks, and spaces).
- page
On what page the story ran. page=a1 would match
articles on the first page of the first section.
- section
The section
of the paper that the story appeared in, e.g. Sports, Home, News.
- slug
The slug line of the story, as used in Quark.
- source
The source of the story, e.g. "Staff Writer", "SAN
ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS".
- subject
A brief
list of words or phrases that describe the subject of the article.
subject=crime would match articles related to crime.
- type
Types of articles,
e.g. Editorial, Series, Computer Assisted Reporting.
type=letter would give you all the letters to the editor.
- ym
Year-Month, the year and month that the story was
published. ym is always four digits, with the first two
representing the year and the last two the month. ym=9409 would match
articles written in September of 1994. ym>9404 and ym<9408 would
match articles written between April and August of 1994 (not inclusive).
Sample field searches:
byline=shimron ....................... (can be first or last name --
use the most uncommon name)
byline=(mary and miller) .......... (use this technique if both names
are common)
page=a1 and byline=tinker
byline=(krueger or dew) and subject=budget
haiti and type=editorial and ym=9409
dayofweek=sunday and page=a1 and source=staff
PARENTHESIS
Parenthesis tell the WAIS system what to search first or what terms to
search together. For example,
hillary or (chelsea and socks)
Here "hillary" is isolated as a single search item and "chelsea and
socks" are another single search item.
(hillary and chelsea) or socks
Here "socks" is isolated as a single search item and "hillary and
chelsea" are another single search item.
legislator or legislature not type=letter
Here an "or" search will be done with "legislator" as one search item and
"legislature not type=letter" as the other.
(legislator or legislature) not type=letter
Here a "legislator or legislature" search will be done and none of the
resources will be a letter.
PRINTING AND DOWNLOADING
To print a story, pull up the full-text version (not the list of
headlines).
In Netscape, click on the print button at the top of the
screen.
In MacWais, click on File in the upper left corner of the
screen and then click on Print.
In WinWais, click once on File
and select Print.
To mail a copy of the story to someone's email address.
In Netscape, click on File in the upper left corner of the screen
and then click on Mail Document. Enter the email address in the
To: field. Then click on the Quote Document button. Wait a
few seconds until the story is in the text of the message and then click
on Send.
To download a copy of the story, pull up the full-text version.
In Netscape, click once on File and select Save as.
Choose the place where you wish to download it to and give it a name.
In MacWais, click on File and select Save as. Choose
the place where you wish to download it to and give it a name.
In WinWais, click on File and then click on Save. Name the
file (it will automatically give it a .DOC extension, unless you specify
otherwise) in the "File Name" field and click OK. The file will be saved
in ASCII (straight text) format, and stored in the C:\WINWAIS directory.
Want to download more than one story at a time?
You can print and mail multiple articles if you're using MacWais or
WinWais (this won't work on Netscape). If you know what the results of a
search will be, and you want to print out every story that matches your
search, you can put the directive printer:printername in your
search. For instance, byline=whitlock and ym=9512 printer:research4
will send all of the stories printed in December 1995 with Whitlock in the
byline to the research4 printer. The HP printer in News Research
(research4) is the only printer on which this batch printing feature
works. The server will not return any results to your WAIS client. If you
want the stories sent to your mailbox instead of to a printer, use the
mailto:address directive in your search. page=al and
date=19941201 mailto:skrueger@nando.com will mail all of the stories
that appeared on page 1 of the December 1 issue to skrueger@nando.com.
LOGGING OFF
Click on File and select Exit or Quit.
Last updated by Sperry Krueger (skrueger@nando.com) on 3/6/96.