BBC Monitoring Library

 

BBC Monitoring Library offers an extensive collection of political and economic information dating back to 2006. As well as background research you can use the database to stay up to date with the latest developments in over 150 countries.

 The news reports are drawn from over 3000 media sources (radio, television, press, news agencies and websites). The BBC Monitoring Library covers 100 languages and is updated 24 hours per day, every day.

 

Reports are indexed according to their subject matter, countries they are related to and words that they contain. You can retrieve articles by entering words typical of the material you are looking for (keywords) and the database responds with a list of headlines of relevant documents. Searches can be carried out on the home page (Quick search) or the advanced search screen. Each one offers different search methods.

 

You must agree to the terms and conditions option on the home page before beginning any searches.

 

 Quick Search (Home Page)


 The Home page offers you a quick internet style search across the database. It will find each keyword you enter in any context – combined with other words and on its own. It is best used when you are uncertain of what you require or are looking for a broad range of material.

 

When Searching for a full name, use speech marks at the beginning and at the end of the name to search for the full name. For example "Tony Blair". Searching without speech marks will results in articles that contain the first and second name.

 

 To find reports using your own keywords, enter the term in the quick search box and click on the Go button or press the return key. Results are listed according to relevancy.

 

 Advanced Search

 

 The advanced search offers you the ability to retrieve very specific reports. You can:

 

  • Search by keyword or headline

  • Select by source and content

  • Select countries and region

  • Select by topic

  • Set specific dates

  • Sort results

 

 

Search Options

 

Or / And

Allows you to decide choose the And / OR option when searching for information across the advanced search page. The default is set at And.

And - means find data which includes all search options

Or - means find data which includes either of the search options

 

The advanced search is automaticaly set at AND.  Using AND will limit the search to those articles that only contain all the chosen options.  For example, choosing Russia as the content source and including the keyword Putin will only bring back articles that discuss Russia and Putin.

 

OR will search for articles that include all the chosen options and result in a much larger search.  For example, choosing Asia as content region and Human Rights as the topic option will show results for all articles from Asia and all about Human Rights.

 

To use the NOT option, you can use the exclude option to remove countries, regions, topics or dates.  For keywords, you must first write NOT in the keyword that you do not want to search for.  For example, Source Country: China and Keywords: not Olympics will result in articles that originate in China but do not contain the keywords Olympics.

 

 Searching for a Source Country

 

 Source Country means the country where the content originates from.

 

 Content Country

 Content Country means the country that the content refers to

 Source Region

 Source regions means the region where the content from

 Content Region

 Content regions are the regions that the content refers to

 Topic

 Allows you to search for information using set topics

 Headline

 Allows you to search for information by using the report headline

 Keyword

 Allows you to search for information using keywords that can be found in the report.

 Date

 Allows you to set the dates for which you wish to search for content. You can also exclude dates by ticking the exclude option.

 Sort by

 These options allow to choose how the results will be seen.

 Relevancy – how often the keyword appears in the article

Source Country / Region - where the content comes from

Content Country / Region - where the content refers to

Language – The language that the article was originally written in

Medium – Media source that the article came from

Service - All content is provided by BBC Monitoring Library

Most Recent – Most recently published articles

Least recent – Oldest published artcles

 

Tips on using advanced search

 
Choosing content

 
As well as ticking the check all option, you can hold the control button and click on the individual items to be selected. You can select as many individual items as you like.

 Excluding content

 You can also exclude items from the searches by holding the control button and clicking the items. You must then tick the exclude box. You can exclude as many individual items as you like.

 Results Page

 

 

You can choose the headline view or the detailed view when reading the results page.

 

The map option will show you search results by each country. Move the curser over the country and it will show you the country and the number of articles.

 Click on the desired county and an information box will appear, click on the box and a pop up box with the relevant articles will appear on the screen.

 You can also use the map to search by source country or number of articles.

 Once you have accessed the report by clicking the more option, you can bookmark, make notes, e-mail and print the information.

 

MY BBCM

 My BBCM allows you to retrieve, store and manage searches, articles, set up your RSS-Feeds and change the look and feel of the website. To use the advanced features, please contact your library administrator for a personal log-in details for My BBCM.