New York Times Editions

Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 18:11:57 -0800
Reply-To: Library Collection Development List <COLLDV-L@USCVM.BITNET>
From: lsipe@calvin.usc.edu
Subject: no.391-PROBLEMS WITH NYT EDS. & INDEXES
To: Multiple recipients of list COLLDV-L
From: "james_F.Green" <20676JFG@MSU.BITNET>

Here at Michigan State University, a popular source for citations for New York Times articles is Information Access Company's Expanded Academic Index, which we have as a locally mounted database available via our online catalog and also via the campus network; locally it is know as ACAD.

Recently, in the course of helping a patron obtain a NYT article that was cited in Expanded Academic index but seemingly not in our collection, I had occasion to do a little ad-hoc research into different editions of the New York Times and how they are represented in Expanded Academic Index, and in our and other libraries' collections. When I posted this as an internal memo, several colleagues suggested that I should share this information with a broader audience, so that is why I am sending it out over the net.

Information Access Company, the producers of Expanded Academic Index (ACAD), indexes both the National and Late City editions of the New York Times. (N) appears after the page numbers of articles from the national edition; (L) appears after the page numbers of articles from the Late City edition.

MSU receives the National edition of the New York Times in hard copy for our current newspaper collection. However, the New York Times microfilm held by MSU and virtually everyone else is the much fuller Late City edition.

More often than not, articles appear in both editions; if page numbers are different, ACAD cites both. Sometimes, however, an article appears only in the National or only in the Late City edition. In such cases, we may not have the article the patron needs, especially if it is a National-edition-only article from an older issue of the New York Times.

There's more: according to IAC customer service reps, IAC indexes the West Coast version of the National edition, produced in San Francisco; but libraries in the Midwest get the version that is produced in Chicago. I called the New York Times and was able to verify that at times these two versions do indeed differ slightly, which can cause ACAD (N) cited articles NOT to appear in our (Midwest) version of the National edition.

If a request for such an article (one that is cited in ACAD but is not in our collection) comes to the interlibrary loan office, we have great difficulty in locating a supplier for the article. The major reason is that all these differences between various editions of the New York Times are not reflected in catalog records on OCLC and RLIN, meaning that we cannot tell which edition(s) of the New York Times are held by different libraries.

My guess that most other libraries' holdings will be similar to ours is corroborated by the personal experience of Bob Quartell, one of our reference librarians:

"I worked for several years at New York Public Library, and we frequently had requests for past issues of the National edition. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to locate ANY library in the nation which kept archival copies of the National edition. (And why would they? Why would anyone pay to microfilm the National edition when they can get the much fuller Late City ed., which is the microfilmed product.)

Of course, the New York Public Library does not have the National edition, as it is unavailable in New York! And patrons will find that the New York Times itself is of little help in locating copies of any version of any past issues. They refer inquirers to the library.

We found that, indeed, most libraries are like MSU--they only keep the paper National ed. until the microfilm arrives, and then it's tossed."

What this all means from my perspective as an ILL assistant is that while I may be able to find a source for a few of the missing articles (recent West Coast National edition articles from libraries out west, recent Late City edition articles from libraries in New York), there will be many times that I will have to try to convince a disbelieving patron that an article from I will have to try to convince a disbelieving patron that an article from the New York Times which is cited in our locally mounted Expanded Academic Index database is not available from any library. The major category of these is older National-edition-only articles.

Of course this has implications for cataloging and preservation as well. Here at MSU Ann Silverman of our serials cataloging department is developing a note that will display in our online catalog that will make it clear that the microfilm and hard copy editions are not exactly the same. I don't know enough about cataloging to suggest what could be done nationally or internationally, but what ILL folks would like would be a way to tell exactly what editions other libraries hold in hard copy and microform via the major bibliographic utilities. I have no idea whether or not the benefits to be derived from this level of cataloging detail would justify the cost.

As far as preservation goes, would it make sense for there to be at least one repository in the world for archival copies of the National edition of the New York Times? I'm not sure of the answer to this. How many articles are there that are lost this way, and do they have enough enduring value to justify the expense of preserving them? I'm sure there's at least one research project in here somewhere.

If anyone has any further information or can correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Jim Green
ILL Assistant
Michigan State University Libraries
Document Delivery Service
East Lansing, MI 48824-1048
Internet: 20676JFG@msu.edu
Phone: (517) 353-4590
Fax: (517) 353-9806