NewsBank facts for kids
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| Formation | 1972 |
|---|---|
| Founder | John Naisbitt |
| Merger of | Readex |
| Type | Corporation |
| Legal status | Active |
| Headquarters | Naples, Florida, United States |
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Region
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United States Canada |
| Services | News database and educational archive resource |
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Official language
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English |
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President and CEO
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Dan Jones |
NewsBank Inc. is a company in the United States that collects and organizes news articles. It provides these collections, which are like huge digital libraries, to schools and public libraries. This helps students and researchers find old news stories and information easily.
Contents
History of NewsBank
NewsBank was started in 1972 by John Naisbitt. He was famous for writing a book called Megatrends. A year later, Daniel S. Jones bought NewsBank from Naisbitt. Jones then became the company's president.
In 1983, NewsBank bought another company called Readex. Readex was one of the first companies in America to save old documents using microform. Microform is a way to store tiny images of documents, like on microfiche.
Working at NewsBank in the 1980s
By 1986, NewsBank had about 100 employees working in their office. Another 100 people worked from their homes. These home-based workers would pick up newspapers from the company's office. They would then go home, read the papers, and create indexes for the information. An index helps you find specific topics quickly.
At that time, NewsBank's main office was in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Moving to Digital: CD-ROMs
In 1986, Chris Andrews joined NewsBank. His job was to help the company switch from paper to digital. Instead of just paper indexes, NewsBank wanted to offer its news collections on CD-ROMs.
A CD-ROM is a disc that stores digital information, like music or computer files. Libraries could subscribe to this new service for about US$5,000. Using CD-ROMs made searching for news much faster. What used to take 30 minutes with paper indexes now took only five minutes.
NewsBank chose which articles to save based on what would interest many future researchers. They focused on stories that were important to a wide audience, not just local news.
Expanding Digital Collections
By 1992, NewsBank was working to make it easier to search for news by location. At that time, they used microfiche to index articles from over 400 US media sources.
In 1993, NewsBank announced a new CD-ROM product. This product included the full text of articles from 35 major newspapers. These included The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.
In 1994, NewsBank was unique in offering an index for theater articles. This was called NewsBank's Review of the Arts: Performing Arts on CD-ROM. The company also started collecting full articles about local economies. They provided this information to clients on CD-ROMs.
NewsBank was a privately held company, meaning its shares were not traded publicly. In 1994, it made about $19 million a year and had 350 employees. By 1998, NewsBank offered CD-ROM indexes to newspaper articles from over 450 cities in the United States.
Modern Archives and Partnerships
In 2001, NewsBank put the Foreign Broadcast Information Service index on CD-ROM. This service collected news from around the world. NewsBank also partnered with Micromedia, Ltd. to help share its products in Canada.
By 2004, NewsBank had digital access to hundreds of news sources dating back to 1996. In 2005, NewsBank offered different access levels. This meant that public libraries, public schools, and higher education (like universities) paid different amounts for access.
In 2011, NewsBank made an agreement with The Daily Northwestern newspaper. This newspaper belongs to Northwestern University. NewsBank agreed to save all of its past publications. This project archived over 90,000 pages of material. It included saving and indexing old publications from 1871 to 2000. This made them searchable online. Dan Jones, the CEO of NewsBank, had a connection to the university. He was a trustee and president-elect of the Northwestern Alumni Association.
In 2013, NewsBank offered a service called Access World News. A book called Reference Skills for the School Librarian described it as the "world's largest full-text news database." By 2014, NewsBank had over 990 news sources. These included national publications and news from every U.S. state. It also included television and radio programs.
NewsBank also offers a special archive called "Black Life in America." This collection focuses on the experiences of Black people in the United States.
See also
- GenealogyBank.com
- LexisNexis
- Westlaw
