Evaluation of six news aggregator databases: a comparison for researchers and librarians

Abstract

News aggregator databases offer different content and features, but there is little guidance on how these databases compare. This article compares the coverage scope, availability of 35 U.S. newspaper titles, and features of six news aggregators available to U.S. academic libraries: Newspaper Source Plus (EBSCO), Factiva, News (Gale OneFile), Nexis Uni (LexisNexis), Access World News (NewsBank), and U.S. Newsstream (ProQuest). Factiva and U.S. Newsstream have most of the titles examined, but others offer multimedia content and batch downloads. Librarians and researchers can use this guide to understand the content and features of databases for research projects, consultations, or collection development.

Keywords:

• News aggregator databases
• news databases
• news content analysis
• database review
• digital news archives

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Melissa Hopkins and Molly Strothmann for their work on revising the Comparison Guide.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.