 | |
| Formation | 1972 |
|---|---|
| Founder | John Naisbitt |
| Merger of | Readex |
| Type | Corporation |
| Legal status | Active |
| Headquarters | Naples, Florida, United States |
Region | United States Canada |
| Services | News database and educational archive resource |
Official language | English |
President and CEO | Dan Jones |
| Website | newsbank |
NewsBank Inc. is a US-based commercial company founded in 1972 that operates a global news database resource providing online archives of media publications as reference materials to libraries. As of 2024[update] it includes current and archived information from thousands of newspapers, videos, broadcast transcripts, journals, and other publications.
John Naisbitt, the author of the bookMegatrends, founded NewsBank.[1] The company was launched in 1972.[2] NewsBank was bought from Naisbitt by Daniel S. Jones, who subsequently became its president.[1][2] Naisbitt left NewsBank in 1973.[3] In 1983, NewsBank acquiredReadex.[4][5] With the completion of the merger, NewsBank had acquired one of the earliest organizations in America to archivemicroform.[4][5]
The company's headquarters in 1986 was inNew Canaan, Connecticut.[6] In that year, NewsBank had 100 in-house employees, while another 100 employees worked from home and traveled to the company's headquarters, bringing back newspapers to their residence from there, and then coming back to the company with indexed information on these publications.[1]
Chris Andrews was brought on in 1986 as product manager forCD-ROM.[1] His job was to help the company transition from a paper format of delivery to libraries, so that its indexes and full-text articles were available in CD-ROM format.[7] The subscription price for this service initially wasUS$5,000 per library.[7] Visitors to libraries found that their search time was cut from 30 minutes using paper indexes to five minutes using CD-ROM.[7] NewsBank used an arbitrary selection process for determining which news articles the company considered worthy for archiving; it based their selection on articles that were more likely to be widely appealing to a larger potential audience of future researchers, not simply stories of regional interest.[3]
In 1992, NewsBank had difficulty providing its users with a method to search for information based upon a specific location. Newspaper results were listed by subject matter first and then subsequently by location. At the time, it indexed articles viamicrofiche from more than 400 media publications in the US.[8] The company announced in 1993 a CD-ROM product indexing full text of 35 publications includingThe Christian Science Monitor,The Washington Post,Los Angeles Times,The Dallas Morning News,Chicago Tribune,The Boston Globe, andThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution.[9]
In 1994, NewsBank was the only company providing researchers access to an index to periodical literature in the subject oftheater, with itsNewsBank's Review of the Arts: Performing Arts on CD-ROM.[10]
It started compiling the full text of articles related to the local economy of geographic areas and providing this information via CD-ROM to its clients in 1994.[11] Theprivately held company was cited byThe Information Advisor as bringing in annual revenue of approximately $19 million, and employing a staff of 350 people.[11] By 1998, NewsBank provided indexes via CD-ROM to newspaper articles from over 450 cities in the United States.[12]
In 2001, NewsBank compiled theForeign Broadcast Information Service index and made it available via CD-ROM.[13] NewsBank joined forces with Micromedia, Ltd., a division of IHS Canada, to help distribute its products in 2001.[14] In 2004 NewsBank maintained archival access to hundreds of media references since 1996.[15] In 2005, NewsBank was structured in a pay-for-use format, with access differentiated for different types of users includingpublic libraries,public schools, as well ashigher education settings.[16]
In 2011 NewsBank reached an agreement withThe Daily Northwestern newspaper ofNorthwestern University to archive all of its historical publications.[17] The task archived more than 90,000 pages of material from the school.[17] It included a plan to archive not justThe Daily Northwestern but also prior related publications from 1871 to 2000, and index the material so it could be keyword searchable on the Internet.[17] Dan Jones, President and CEO of NewsBank, had a prior relationship with the university, serving as a university trustee and president-elect of the Northwestern Alumni Association.[17]
In 2013, NewsBank provided users with its service Access World News, which according toReference Skills for the School Librarian was then the "world's largest full-text news database".[18] In 2014 NewsBank contained over 990 news sources, covering U.S. state as well as national publications, along with television and radio programs.[19]
NewsBank's offerings include a "Black Life in America" archive.[20]
As of 2024[update], NewsBank holds current and archived information from thousands of newspapers, along withnewswires, blogs, videos, broadcast transcripts, journals, government documents, and other publications.[21] It is a global resource, providing online resources to many regions.[22]
TheNational Library of Australia,[23] along with many state and university libraries in Australia, provide online access to NewsBank.[24][25][26][27][28] As of 2024[update] the resource holds over 760 Australian sources, both national and regional, with coverage for most titles starting in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s.[29]
NewsBank headquarters are inNaples, Florida, U.S., and it also has an office inMitcham North,Melbourne, Australia.[28]
The founding president and CEO is Dan Jones.[30][31] His son, Danny (1972–2024), was the consumer division's first president, and largely responsible for growing GenealogyBank, while his daughters have also worked for the organization.[32]
The most comprehensive collection of full-text newspapers globally, Access Global NewsBank:... more than 7,000 global news sources covering over 200 countries and territories. These include over 600 from Australia, from community, regional and rural titles through to major national titles. (2021)
