Issues in TrainingLos Angeles Times Editorial Library

Julia Franco Training & Communicationsjulia.franco@latimes.com

Structure of the L.A. Times

Tribune company

Los Angeles Times

Home –Downtown L.A. (Editorial library)

4 other editions (1 library in Orange County)

9 domestic bureaus (1 library in Washington D.C.)

23 foreign bureaus

Structure of the Library

Main library, downtown Los Angeles• 8 News Research librarians, including manager• 1 special DC projects librarian• 1 obits researcher• 8 Archiving staff• 4 Resource Development staff

Branch library in Orange County• 1 librarian

Branch library in Washington D.C.• 1 librarian

Training initiative

To familiarize the editorial staff with the resources the library provides

To give the staff the tools to use the resources

Ensure that users can customize the resources to meet their needs

Who we teach

New newsroom hires

Metpros (Minority Editorial Training Program)

Interns

Magazine researchers (Journalism students, work for one or more academic semesters)

Foreign bureau reporters on ‘home leave’

Current newsroom staff as needed

Library staff

What we teach

Efficient search and retrieval in:• TimesOnline (in-house archive of L.A. Times stories)

• MediaSphere (in-house archive of images)

• Subscription databases the library provides to newsroom desktops, such as Factiva.com, Leadership Directories

• Proprietary databases created by the library Resource Development staff and the Times’ data analyst

• Internet

• Techniques for evaluating Internet resources

What we don’t teach

Windows

PC programs (Excel, Access, Word)

Technology

Computational skills

Beat reporting

Assessing needs

New users

Direct requests for help from users

Requests from supervisors or editors for staff training

Recommendations from librarians

New resources become available

Scheduled training

‘Brown Bag’ sessionsStrictly demo, 1 hour, 6-10 participants

Hands-on sessionsInteractive, 1- 1 ¾ hours, 9 participants

Formal training Combo interactive & demo, 2 hours, 12 –16 participants

One-on-oneForeign correspondents, personnel in other bureaus by

phone

Brown Bag

Requires strategic planning because of time constraints

Informal nature means late arrivals and early departures, and distraction of lunch

Because of timing (way before deadline) and short duration, easiest to involve other librarians in

Good for ‘previewing’ a product

Hands-on

Requires an outline of lesson plan, not rigid structure – to allow for experimentationRequires solid knowledge on trainer’s part because questions will come out of left fieldRequires finesse on trainer’s part to keep some participants from dominating the session Best for full exploration of the subject/ resource/ databaseUsually gets a more committed audience (willing to invest more than an hour)

Formal training

Best for introducing new tools to a large group

Easiest to structure

Requires adhering to a schedule, which in turn requires having planned examples – no surprises from winging it

One-on-one training

In person -- completely tailored to needs of the correspondent

By phone – based on what can be conveyed without visuals• Usually covers less ground because of the time

it takes and the discomfort of working by phone

Unscheduled training

Phone calls for help

Drop-ins

Referrals from librarians

Training Materials

Intranet increasingly becoming avenue of distribution• PDF’s

• easily made, display nicely, and are good for printing out

• Internal links to specific parts of vendor online Help pages

• Links to documents on the server for specific resources

Training Materials

Hardcopy handouts • Created in-house

• Instruction Guides

• Information Guides

• ‘Cheat sheets’

• Vendor provided materials

Formatting Training Materials

Specific, step-by-step

Clear, no fuzzy masters

Straight lines, centered

All text legible

Where to get additional help, phone numbers

Step-by-step Instruction Guides

Walk through the searching process

Document each step

Illustrate where appropriate • Screen grabs• Arrows and text boxes

For Demographic Profiles at levels below State, Use American FactFinder and follow these steps:

Choose Keyword as type of search, type ‘dp’ in the search box.

Click on ‘More…’ Choose

California

Click on ‘Get Product”

Scroll to the place you want and click.

1

2

4

3

5

Information Guides

Overview of product

Specifics of each component

Illustrations where appropriate

rd TimesOnline Web www.news.latimes.com

LOS ANGELES TIMES Editorial Library

Information Guide

TIMESONLINE WEB The TimesOnline database consists of the full text of stories from each year beginning in 1985 and continuing through today. There is no advertising, no comics, and nothing that appeared in agate type. Plurals are automatically searched. SEARCHING Searching TimesOnlineWeb is a matter of filling in the boxes on the form. I. The first box allows you to look for Words anywhere in story . Here are the rules:

• The system supplies the connector ‘ ’ and between words and retrieves only stories t , , hat have both or all . ( 3 .)the words you type See Advanced Searching Tips on page for using other connectors

• : Searching Phrases and Names , If you are searching for a phrase or a name enter your search terms in . single or double quotes This will retriev e a phrase or name with one intervening term which allows for a . , “middle initial For example Arthur Miller,” “or George Bush” . , “to find George W Bush or Gone Wind”

( ).to find Gone With the Wind see Stop Words below • To make sure you are also searching t he Descriptor field for a name you should use the near connector

. ; between the first and last names This will search for both names in either order last name first in the . : Descriptor field and first name first in the story text Example 2 gray near davis

• St :op Words ’ : Don t use these ten words in your searches, , , , , , , , , a an and by for from of the to with. The . “ system does not recognize them and you will retrieve zero results Enter chamber commerce” to search . Chamber of Commerce If you use a stop word in y “ , our search you will get a Sorry No results were

…” .found for your query message • :Punctuation ; . , Do not use periods in your searches apostrophes are okay To search a hyphenated phrase

for instance F-8, , use quotation marks but leave out the hyphen--“f 8” . II The next box allows you to look for .Words in Headline

• , . Type one or two significant words that you want to appear in the headline not the entire headline This field

. includes the deck • If you are searching for a phrase in the headline field en close the words in quotation marks—‘ ’foreign aid . III Box three allows searching by . Descriptor Terms

• Descriptors . are the index terms supplied by the Electronic Publishing department of the Library • Descriptors can be personal or corporatenames. • They can besubjects such aselections orpoverty. • (Acronyms are spelled out Los Angeles Police Department ).not LAPD • , Personal names are listed last name first Riordan Richard . .not Richard Riordan Do not use a comma • You will need to use quotation marks on .these names and phrases • . :Not all stories are given Descriptors These kinds of stories are not

Columns Obituaries

Recipes and other Food stories , , Editorials letters and opinion pieces

Daily stock market reports Wild Art photo captions

Reviews Game Stories

Cheat Sheets

Quick notes

Bullet points

Easy to read, keep hardcopy by computer

How To Edit in the Resource Lists Database To get to the Edit interface, go to the library intranet (http://www.news.latimes.com/) and mouse over Library Services. Click on “Guide to Services.” In the left-hand frame, click on “Resources (Editing)” User Name is list Password is list The “How to Edit” document will show up on the right. On the left will be the Resources Edit interface. From the interface you can:

• “ ” Choose to add a New Document • Pull up one of the lists to browse by clicking on it • Search for a document or term

If you want toEDIT , an existing document click on its link in the cite list

.This will open the document in the editing interface . Changes can be made in any of the fields

TheTi tle . field is the document title that is displayed in the list The ( )Title Indexable version . will be the term or phrase that the database sorts on For

, ’ , instance if you wanted Republic of Chile to sort with the C s you would put Chile in . this field If ’ , . you don t put anything here the database will use what is in the Title field The Summary 255 , field will pick up the first characters of the document or you can

( 255 ).create your own summary up to characters A Photo . can be added You will need to cons .ult with Paul Singleton in the library

: . Note any of these fields can contain whatever kind of information you want to designate They . , . can even be renamed Again consult with Paul Text . is where you will probably make the most changes You can cut an d paste from , , , . any other text document or add delete or change the text You will need to add a little

. markup for any special formatting Tags for markup go immediately before and behind .the words or phrases you want formatted

Being the Trainer

If you have to incorporate training into your ‘real’ job• Try to take notes as you use a resource or database• Work on the documentation a little at a time

Keep separate files on your computer for each tool you will teach so you can get to them easily

Add to the instructions each time you use the tool yourselfNote the questions that users (or other librarians) have about the

tool

• When possible, recruit help Contributions from colleagues for web resourcesHow-to tips from colleagues Trade time with colleagues Interns

Issues in Training

Los Angeles Times

Editorial Library

Julia Franco Training & Communications