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Our library is considering purchasing a CD-ROM of several thousand newspaper
articles published between 1861-65: Accessible Archives' _The Civil War: A
Newspaper Perspective_. Publication is scheduled for this Fall.
We have not had much luck finding reviews, and we are not familiar with the
publisher. Before committing the several hundred dollars to purchase the
disk, we were hoping that the subscribers of this list would be able to
offer some useful comments.
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I have seen the demonstration disk. It works quite well. I'm
particularly impressed with the maps and drawings which are included.
The articles are interesting, but the whole thing is somewhat limited
by the fact that only four (I think) newspapers are sampled. There
might be some serious questions about just which four they were.
The search feature works well, facilitating selection of relevant
articles.
Articles are extracted from the newspapers. It's not the full text of
the daily paper put on CD, though there are some "other" things on
there to give a flavor to the time.
Accessible Archives has also put out a CD on the Pennsylvania Gazette,
which was well received at the USC Columbia campus by the
Colonial/Revolutionary specialists there. They're also coming out with
a CD of NILES WEEKLY REGISTER.
Mr. Nagy, who runs the company, is a very courteous man to deal with.
He'll nag you, if you express any interest, with follow-up phone
calls, but he'll do so at decent intervals and he'll be pleasant,
courteous, and inoffensive.
I considered ordering this CD for my library, but
budget cuts put an end to that plan!
Tom Powers
Professor of History
The University of South Carolina at Sumter
TPOWERS@USCSUMTER.USCSU.SCAROLINA.EDU