1. Historical New York Times
with Index
The New York Times
(1851-2006) with Index
(1851-1993)
ProQuest has digitized
and integrated The New
York Times Index with the
Historical New York
Times
The New York Times is the newspaper of record in the United States
2. Historical New York Times
with Index
The Master Key to Newspapers
The New York Times Index was built by The Times
The Index is a record of history on its own
Reflects the vocabulary of the time
3. The Benefits of an Index
The print index: the original search engine
Before aggregators and Google, researchers used print
indexes to find articles in newspapers and journals
Newspapers initially developed indexes for internal use
and later they found wide public use in libraries
“A newspaper index, because of its extreme usefulness, must be made to fit
the time, the place and the occasion. It must be made to suit the needs of
its creators and it must meet the demands of every type of user…”
Harry Friedman, Newspaper Indexing
4. Benefits of The New York Times
Index with your online subscription
Adding The Index to your subscription adds more power
to the database:
Topics Browse
Puts more than 3 million historical terms at researchers fingertips
More precise searching in Advanced Search
5 additional fields to search:
Subject, Person, Organization/Company, Creative Work, and
Location
Enhanced article abstracts
Topic Heading
New York Times article summary
Print location
“More Like This” links to similar articles
5. Benefits of The New York Times
Index with your online subscription
Benefits of enhanced searching and article abstracts
Narrow a search based on subject
Follow links to articles with the same Index terms to find
similar articles
The terms in the abstracts provide historical clues (context &
vocabulary)
The New York Times Index provides not only search guidance but also
historical context.
19. Historical New York Times with
Index: Summary
The digitized New York Times Index has been fully
integrated into The Historical New York Times
The Index retains the vocabulary and flavor of the time
Enhances research with new research categories and
“Topics” browse
More robust searching yields more precise results
Researchers can link directly to articles without the
lengthy multi-step process involved with the print Index
Editor's Notes
ProQuest has integrated the New York Times Index (1851-1993) with The New York Times (1851-2005) so searches now have the benefits of the New York Times’ own Index for more precise searching.
The New York Times Index was first published in 1913 as a quarterly edition for libraries, universities, and other newspapers. The Index transformed The Times into the “newspaper of record” It made the newspaper a databank that could be searched.In 2001 The New York Times printed an editorial about The Index, “Dusting Off the Search Engine” which included the vision of The Index’s found, Adolph Ochs.
Before online databases researchers had to consult print indexes to access newspaper articles. Researchers would look in the index to identify articles around their topic of interest then go to the microfilm to access the article.
Similar to The Library of Congress Subject Headings the language used by the Times shifted to reflect the contemporary language. For example: “African American” would not have been used in 1900, “Computer” did not exist 100 years ago
An example highlighted keyword terms in the print index – Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt
Search Person: Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt to find articles about her
Article 3 is the same article as listed in the print index
With a click researchers can go from the search results to the article image or full page image.In the abstract you can see this was a front page article, researchers can also click through to other articles about Mrs. Roosevelt or Theodore Roosevelt Jr.From the full page image you can see what other news made the front page. There is a very interesting article about Bernard Shaw and a conflict he was having with a Librarian.
Additional search categories are available: Company/Organization, Creative Work, Location, Person, and Subject. These new categories are indicated with an *
Searching Index categories provides more precise search results. The Abstracts are enhanced to include additional information (next slide)
Index Summary provides more information about the article and can provide historical information through the vocabulary and treatment of the subject.Topic Headings – vocabulary of the time, click through to articles categorized under that same topic heading.Find more documents like this – Use the Index terms to search for similar articles
Click the Topics tab to access Topics browse.Topics browse was released in September 2009. Researchers can search across over 3 million Index terms for us the topic categories to browse topics.
Browsing topics researchers can click through to related articles, and find related topics for exploration
Topics include the Index entry and links to the related articlesWhen applicable, additional topics are suggested to narrow a search
