News remains one of the fundamental sources for history and social science research. From traditional print publications to real-time aggregation of electronic texts, scholars rely on a variety of news resources, applying new research methodologies and innovative processes to these “evergreen” resources.

However, the way news content is produced and distributed (by publishers), and acquired and maintained (by libraries) is changing.  The Internet has essentially “re-routed the supply chain” for news: websites, online broadcast, blogs, and social media like YouTube and Twitter provide channels for news reporting that did not exist two decades ago. Libraries, faced with stringent budgets and changing user behavior, rely increasingly on commercial subscriptions and the open web to serve content that once was acquired and retained locally in “collections of record.” These developments render the existing library models for news preservation, rooted in the microform age, obsolete.

This members-only webinar will feature Dan Jones, President of NewsBank, Inc., who will discuss how producers of commercial news databases study market and user behavior to shape their products. In addition, CRL staff will:

• Provide an overview of news coverage in major commercial databases, and a comparative assessment of available print resources from developing world regions;
• Discuss what new uses of news content are driving collection and database development; and
• Propose a cooperative library strategy to meet the changing needs of researchers in the area of current and historical news resources.

The presentations in this webinar will help set the stage for a larger discussion at a Global Resources roundtable on news, to be held June 27–28, 2013 in Chicago, immediately prior to the ALA Annual Conference. The June discussions will guide CRL’s work over the next few years in the area of news.