Have we got (world) news for you!

Just one website again this week, but it’s another biggy. Sorry, biggy is not big enough – it’s a hugey!

At a newsstand (not) near you

What happened about that plan for teachers – did the unions go for it? Hang on, I’ll just check today’s Daily Telegraph. Did the police give the green light to taser guns? I’ll check it out in The Times. But since we’re talking about the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the Waikato Times, I either need to get out of bed and visit newsagents on another continent, or else use Library PressDisplay.

You might quibble about this. Hang on, you might say, I’ll bet those newspapers have got websites – I’ll get the dirt on teachers and tasers from those. You probably could, but what you couldn’t do is see the story, and the rest of the paper, exactly as printed, with all the rest of the stories, the adverts, the gossip, the crossword… start to get the picture?

Library PressDisplay carries newspapers from around the world in facsimile form, complete from cover to cover. They tend to pop up on the site before the print versions hit the streets of Sydney or Waikato or wherever. And if you’re feeling so lazy you can’t even be bothered to read the paper, a nice electronic lady will read it to you (it’s a bit fiddly – you hover the cursor over the article until a little toolbar appears, and then hit the musical notes icon). So far, the nice lady only reads from selected newspapers.

This is not the easiest website in the world to navigate. You have to use the buttons and arrows on the site itself; using the Internet Explorer toolbars confuses it. To get the most out of it, you need to spend a few minutes delving into its hidden recesses. But what a payback! Lovely clear graphics, a very sophisticated search function, and a two-month back file.

Mind you – although a drift through the newspapers of the world can reveal the differences between cultures and countries, it can also throw up a depressing number of similarities. So when you find a newspaper which isn’t covering economic problems and global warming, make a note of it. You’ll want to call again.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "News & magazines" Library Press Display is a Key Link. This is a Westminster Libraries Exclusive Resource; outside the library, you will need your library card number to log in)

Next time on Web Treasure Hunt…

You may have noticed that Westminster Libraries have taken out subscriptions to rather a lot of newspaper databases recently. We think they’re all great, but they do have a tendency to hide behind mysterious names which tell you very little. So next week’s Treasure Hunt will be a survey of where to go for what. The monkeys are already doing the typing (and reading the newspapers, natch).

Pics: sumadjinn, cynwulf / morguefile.com