Reuters: a survey of end‐user searching
Jennifer Jill Harman · Aslib Journal of Information Management · 1986
As part of its commitment to new technology Reuters, the international news‐gathering agency, is replacing its library of press cuttings' files with a full‐text database, Newsbank. Until the introduction of Newsbank, information retrieval from the cuttings' files was carried out by a team of trained librarians; now it is the journalists — the end‐users — who are expected to search the database. In order to obtain feedback on the value and use of Newsbank a questionnaire was distributed to Reuters' journalists. Results show that Newsbank, in its present form, is not a success. Furthermore there is a strong feeling amongst the journalists that information retrieval is not part of their job but should be carried out by trained librarians.