Middle East & African Newsstream

Tabbed

Overview

This digital collection (formerly Middle East Newsstand) provides access to the current content and past few decades of more than 150 news sources from across the Arab World, Israel, Southwest Asia, and Africa. Product coverage includes newspapers,wire feeds, trade journals, and select additional sources. Content is represented in English and French (Arabic sources are not included).

Provider:

ProQuest

Posted:

Feb 26, 2013 3:56pm

Updated:

Sep 20, 2017 3:01pm

Source

CRL reviews are based on independent research. Information is researched by CRL staff and other specialists at CRL libraries. See CRL Review for additional source notes.

Details

Collection Content

Subject Areas:

Social Sciences

Resource Types:

News databases

Major Languages:

English

French

- Denotes data sourced directly from publisher

Content Details:


Geographic coverage	The Arab world, including Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia
Chronological coverage	1988 to present (for some titles)
Content types	newspapers, news websites
Source formats	electronic file (sent directly from the publisher usually available on the publishers' websites)
Total titles	30+
Total pages	NA
Digital collection launch date	2008
Update frequency	daily
Collection ongoing	Y
Completion date	NA
Available supplements	NA

Specifications

Metadata:


MARC records available	N
Creator of MARC records	NA
Structural metadata exposed anywhere?	NA
Subject authorities used	NA
Name authorities used	NA

Technical Platform:


Authentication options	IP range recognition
Archiving solution-master files	Archived by ProQuest
Archiving solution-derivative files	Archived by ProQuest
Availability in web Discovery tools	Y (Summon)
Open URL target	Y
Federated searching z39.50	Y
Local host option	N
Usage statistics	Y
Browser compatibility	Netscape 4.7x or higher; Microsoft IE 5 or higher; Firefox 3.5 or higher; Chrome

Interface Tools:


Full text displayed	Y
Page images	N
Color images	N
Search full text	Y
Advanced search	Y
Search within results	Y
Limit results by dates and/or document types	Y
Display highlighted search terms	Y
Display snippet -- search term in context	N
Relevance sorting	N
Save searches	Y
Download PDF	N
Download HTML	Y
Print page	Y
Print full document	Y
Export citations	Y
Annotation tools	N
Cross-product searching	Y
ILL	Y (provided the loan is not done in a manner or magnitude that would replace the recipient library's own subscription)
Restrictions on use

Terms and Provider Details

Terms:


	Options
Subscription option	Y
Purchase option	N
Multiple year payments option	NA
Hosting charges	NA
List of purchasers available	Y
Sample license available	Y
MARC records purchase fee	NA
Price tier basis	NA

Provider:

ProQuest

Website:

http://www.proquest.com/

Main Address:

789 E. Eisenhower Parkway

Ann Arbor, MI 48108

United States

CRL Review

Collection Content:

This digital collection provides access to the current content and past few decades of "more than 150 news sources," including more than 30 full text news sources from across the Arab World, Israel, Southwest Asia, and Africa. Content is represented in English and French -- the database does not contain articles in Arabic or Persian, though ProQuest reports that certain Arabic content has been translated into English by the publishers and are included in the product.

Middle East & African Newsstream (renamed in 2016, combining former products Middle East Newsstand and African Newsstand) is offered as a discrete product on the ProQuest platform, but is also incorporated into the broader "International Newsstream" and the comprehensive "Global Newsstream" products available via ProQuest Central.

Product coverage includes newspapers,wire feeds, trade journals, and select additional sources. Geographic coverage includes broad coverage of Africa and Middle East from syndication and press services and specific counrty coverage through mainstream news publishers. According to ProQuest's title list, a significant portion of content appears to be provided by Syndigate Media Inc, a syndication service founded in Jordan in 2007.¹ The title list suggests approximately 75% of sources in the product are provided via Syndigate. In 2013, CRL noted that sources included World News Connection, a foreign news service from the U.S. government. This service has been discontinued, and is no longer listed in the product in current or retrospective form. Notable additional content sources include Aljazeera.net, BBC Monitoring, Independent newspaper group (South Africa), Christian Science Monitor, and Financial Times.

A CRL analysis (September 2017) of the extent of title holdings indicates that while some article coverage begins in the late 1980s and 1990s, the majority of content is from 2008 to the present. The number of sources represented appears to have grown over time, with 2017 coverage larger than any previous year. The ProQuest title list indicates nearly 230 sources are included in the product, though 46 sources are no longer current. 182 titles are listed as current (as of Sept. 2017). See Appendix A for more detailed analysis.

It is worth noting coverage includes selected sources from India, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (not traditionally covered under other "Middle East" resources).

The publisher indicates that the full content of every newspaper has been indexed. Abstracts (generated through an automated indexing tool) and citations are available. Some sources have been translated from Arabic to English by the publishers.

Delivery:

While the articles are available primarily in English or French, including some translated from Arabic, the interface is also available in Arabic. Beck (2012) noted a number of mispellings in the database content that may derive from translation errors rather than transcription variations (“Egpyt” for “Egypt”, “Algera” for “Algeria”, etc.). These could affect search results despite natural language searching features.

The platform offers all features of ProQuest’s platform, including faceted options for massaging results and a word occurrence graph. It offers natural language searching, narrowing of searches by date, document types, and several other fields.

ProQuest does not offer MARC records for the titles.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

The database represents widespread coverage of African and Middle East news resources. However, as most of the content is provided by aggregators and syndication services, there is an risk that content may suddenly disappear as a result of contractual licensing arrangements between ProQuest and these providers.

Reviewers:

Center for Research Libraries

Virginia Kerr – Digital Program Manager
James Simon – Vice President, Collections & Services

Sources

Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher; data collected by CRL staff and specialists at CRL libraries; and examination of the digital collection when possible. Other sources are noted where cited. CRL continues to gather additional information on this resource and to solicit critical assessment.

Endnotes:

¹ Syndigate Media Inc. - http://www.syndigate.info/about-us (Accessed 20 September 2017).

²Thomas J. Beck, “Middle East Newsstand,” The Charleston Advisor January 2012: 32–34. Accessed February 27, 2013.

CRL Offers & Status

Status	Current	Description
CRL Flagged	no	Potential interest to CRL community
Offer Pending	no	Currently a candidate for CRL offer
Active Offer	no	Currently offered for purchase or new subscription
Trial Access	no	Available for trial
Renewal Offer	no	Currently offered for renewal
Expired Offer	yes	Past offers
Inactive / Declined	no	No longer under consideration by CRL
Reviewed by CRL	yes	Evaluation available by CRL and community
Special Access	no	Member-only access available for a limited time

The complete offer and activity details for this resource are only available to CRL members.

Appendix

Attachments:

Middle East Newsstand: CRL title holdings analysis

Up to date title list can be downloaded from ProQuest at: http://tls.search.proquest.com/titlelist/jsp/list/tlsSingle.jsp?productI...

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