Director Thomas Lutgen started the program with a warm welcome. A demonstration of Times Link, an online database of information from the Los Angeles Times and other sources gave us an opportunity to evaluate this service for our libraries and home use. Each of us received software to connect to TimesLink for a hands-on trial access to the news, book and movie reviews, community information, etc.
Next we toured the heavily computerized Editorial Library. Here the research activity is intense. The library must respond quickly to the pressing deadlines of newspaper staff who require data, verification of names, and previously published stories on similar topics. We learned about the Database Construction Group responsible for preparing the information and installing the hooks (e.g., index terms, byline and headline information) found in the internal full-text database Times OnLine, as well as in the Nexis, Dow Jones and Dialog databases. The most fascinating use of computers is the Electronic Picture Library. Its huge database of color graphic images is accessed using keywords on Macintosh computers, and the quality of the printed copies made from these electronically stored images is impressive.
The day concluded with a tour of the newsroom where we passed by the desks of various writers and editors and viewed the photography department, composing room, and kitchen where recipes are actually tested
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Submitted by Naomi Moy
California State University, Domingeuz Hills
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