On 1/5/07, Marion Sumerianlibrarian <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> i stopped regular reading of rain posts a good 2 or so
> years ago. i'm sure that was when peter began using
> bots for article searches and the overall quality of
> both the categories and the individual pieces became
> much more generic and inferior.

had to go back 2 years to see what the anonymous mysterious Marion
Sumerianlibrarian was talking about. Back in 2004 I was doing a weekly
RAIN update. Each update was for a particular category such as Open
Records, Government, Technology, whatever. At that time I had more
free time available to do that. not as many newspapers were indexed by
bots at that time

As to the use of bots, I've been using various bots to search for
articles since the about 1998. Now I exclusively use Google News
Alerts.

Now if some one has stopped reading something 2 years back how can one
then say that they have become more generic and inferior. Just
remember you get what you pay for.

>
> i'd be curious to know, however, the search parameters
> he uses, and the selection process beyond that for the
> pieces that get posted.

as stated above I use Google News Alerts to search the online media.
Google News indexes over 4,000 online news sources. I also have 4
yahoo news service searches running (not nearly as robust or extensive
as Google). I have approximately 50+ news alerts running every day.
Now what are the search parameters/terms that I use?
here are but a few of the searches that i have running. those that
appear within quotation marks are exact term searches

"open records"
"records manager"
"national archives"
"national archive"
archivist archives
email destruction
records documents files
shredding files

I receive news alerts once a day. I review each alert  to identify
those that might contain a story of interest to me or my readership.
Each alert contains between 1 and many stories. If a search did not
find articles that meet the terms then no alert is sent.

Once all the alerts are reviewed I go through and capture the relevant
stories for posting in RAIN. After scanning stories for over 10 years
(RAIN started in 1996) I have developed a 6th sense for potential
story. If a story is borderline I will access the relevant website and
quickly review the story. have a few stinkers slipped through? sure,
but I think they have been outweighed by the relevant ones.

what you see in a RAIN posting is what I get from Google News Alerts.

I try to walk a narrow line with regards to story selection. I'm sure
that marion is wondering why I didn't pick up and post the stories
about the EPA library closings? Simple reason they weren't captured by
any of my searches. At the same time I didn't think that they would be
of interest since they were not (IMHO) connected to archives or
records management. More of a library issue.

I try to collect and post stories that will interest a broad audience
as well as to get folks thinking outside of the narrow parameters of
their current jobs. My purpose is to get folks to go "mmmmmmm I didn't
know that."



> bring back the old rain!

Not likely unless you are willing to pay for it ;-)

also depends upon what 'old rain' you are referring to? over a 10 yr
span of time I have modified how and when RAIN is gathered, composed
and posted.

so thank you Marion (whoever you are) for asking

pa

-- 
Peter Kurilecz CRM CA
Richmond, Va

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