In a message dated 9/11/02 2:41:01 PM Central Daylight Time, ptodd@fastol.com writes: > Subj:Re: [MDCAROLI] Re:Davis genealogy > Date:9/11/02 2:41:01 PM Central Daylight Time > From:<A HREF="mailto:ptodd@fastol.com">ptodd@fastol.com</A> > Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:MDCAROLI-L@rootsweb.com">MDCAROLI-L@rootsweb.com</A> > To:<A HREF="mailto:MDCAROLI-L@rootsweb.com">MDCAROLI-L@rootsweb.com</A> > Sent from the Internet > > > > I find it much easier to go through the Caroline County Public Library > web-site, much less trouble. > http://www.caro.lib.md.us/library/ > > Click on "Electronic Databases", then pick "The Denton Journal." > > Parker > Dear Parker, Your note about using the Caroline Library system to access the Denton Journal was interesting. It may be easier to get into the Denton paper via the library, but I thought you might be interested in an experiment I conducted to compare the two search engines. I went into both systems. I got into the library system faster, but after I completed the search for Alfred B. Carter in each and got a list of matches, I found that the newspaperarchive.com system brought up the full page images faster (Both produced the thumbnail sketches quickly). More important, I discovered that although both systems give you a "thumbnail sketch" of the name you want when you click on one of the matches listed, the systems performed quite differently when you tried to switch from the thumbnail sketch to the full page view. The library system took me to the front page of the newspaper for every match and I had to use the navigation option (found my right clicking on the mouse when I had the curser placed on the article) to get to the page in the newspaper which had n article about Alfred B. Carter. In contrast, the newspaperarchive.com system took me right to the page where the article was found. Furthermore, it highlighted the name I was searching for in yellow so that it was easy to find on the page. The library system did not highlight the name and, therefore, in addition to having to navigate through the paper page by page, I had to read all of each page until I came to the article. A BIG waste of time!! Finally, the library search engine produced a list of 7 matches for Alfred B. Carter while the newspaperarchive.com system produced 18. All of the library matches were included in the newspaperarchive.com list. I looked at all 18 from newspaperarchive.com and found Alfred B. Carter on every one of the pages on the list of matches found by the search engine. Only because I had looked up the articles on newspaperarchive.com, was I able to find the seven matches fairly quickly in the Caroline County library system -- I was able to find the matches in the library's system faster because I already knew the title of the article, and if the newspaper had printed page numbers on the page, I knew the page number from looking at the article in the newspaperarchive.com system prior to looking for it in the Caroline County library system. Incidentally, in case you want to go page by page in newspaperarchive.com, they have the same exact navigation system and you can right click on your mouse to get to it and move through the paper page by page. Result: Based on this one test, I would certainly choose to use the newspaperarchive.com system over the libary system. It moved faster, took me to the exact page, highlighted the name I searched for, and will still let me navigate page by page instead of making me navigate page by page. Just thought you might be interested if you had not done a matched comparison of the two systems! Karen Minneapolis, MN