ClipSearch

In recent years, various publications have digitised their back issues and put them online. The Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) has been busy for the last couple of years in setting up its own alternative, ClipSearch.

ClipSearch is unusual in that it offers newspaper clips (or, for a larger fee, entire editorial pages) in PDF format. The PDFs come direct from each newspaper’s production department and so offer perfect clarity rather than the imperfect quality of scanned images. Any copy that shares the page with the clip is removed, although the look and feel remains reminiscent of the original publication style.

The NLA says that an additional attraction for ClipSearch users is the price model, which is a pay-as-you-go credits system (although a more traditional subscription is also available).

With more than 120 major national and regional newspaper titles already signed up to ClipSearch, fresh material arrives daily, although newspaper content is subject to a three-day embargo before it can be republished. The archive dates back no earlier than 2006.

Nuts and bolts of search
Users can search for news in a number of ways, such as by company name, author or keyword. By default, results are ranked by date, although this can be changed, and keywords are highlighted in the returned results with a brief synopsis, before the choice to access an article is made. Success is not assured. For example, just searching for “BT” in a week when the company shed 10,000 jobs yielded no related material, although with the addition of some specifics all the coverage became available.

It was about this point that I had some initial issues with ClipSearch. For a start there is no real preview of the material. There is just a summary and a smattering of information such as word count and cost, because NLA does not want to give away too much before you buy. While that is understandable, surely there must be a better way to stop clients walking away with the material without paying for it yet still providing enough information to help them judge whether they want it or not.

Perhaps ClipSearch could follow the example of numerous image banks, and plaster the word ‘sample’ across the content?

On the other hand, although there are strict licensing terms (no saving of PDFs, no distributing the file, print-outs only), the PDFs are free from the shackles of digital rights management.

ClipSearch isn’t really designed for the casual user relying on serendipity for some decent search results. Media monitoring agencies and researchers (ClipSearch’s intended market) will, in all likelihood already have a good idea of what they want and where they can find it.

Overall, ClipSearch is a good resource and it will be interesting to see how it continues to develop.

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