Debra Bade, CNN

The following is an electronic tour of the CNN library. Our tour guide is Debra Bade, Director of News Research and Chair-elect of the SLA News Division. This tour was completed in the fall of 1999

Questions

  1. Describe the organization/corporate culture and political climate.

    2. CNN started in 1980 so we are a fairly young company. There have been lots of growing pains over the years as CNN grew from a tiny 24-hour news venture which no one took seriously into the large global news organization we are today. There was a tremendous spirit of being pioneers in the early days, taking on this new 24-hour approach to news, and I think that spirit still exists in some ways, even though we certainly have competitors in the 24-hour news business now. That competition has been healthy and has challenged CNN to think about depth and analysis in our programming as well as delivering the immediate on-the-spot news for which we've become famous. There is a strong "make-do" mentality here - we don't always have all the financial or staffing resources we'd like but everyone pulls together, especially when we are in breaking story mode and everyone is focused on quickly getting the very best information and video to CNN air.

  2. 2. Discuss the availability and use of information technology in general, with particular attention to internet/intranet applications.

    3. In the Library we use all the major online services heavily since getting to the most recent information and getting to it quickly is essential. These services include Lexis-Nexis, Dialog, Dow Jones Interactive, Westlaw, Baseline, Autotrack etc. Lexis-Nexis Universe and Dow Jones Interactive products are among the database tools which I have rolled out to newsroom end-users, along with other smaller web subscriptions. Now that so much great information is available over the Internet it is much more practical for me to give access to wider groups of people. Previously I'd tried many end-user oriented tools but they involved very clunky software and required a lot of hands-on maintenance and supervision. The Library's research web site provides easy links to end-user tools and help information on products. On the archive side, reporters can search the video database via Netscape at their workstations and that can help streamline their use of the Library in identifying video for air.

  3. How do you align your information services with strategic planning or your organizations?

    4. My department falls under the Information Technology/Research and Development wing of the company along with CNN Interactive.

  4. Describe your responsibilities.

    5. As the Director, I oversee all of our news research operations. This includes online database research services, contract negotiation, reference book acquisitions and cataloging, cd-rom networking, research web site development, breaking news research by staff on a 24x7 Research Desk, server administration, employee recruitment, end-user and library training etc. A typical entry-level librarian at CNN would be responsible for working hours on our Research Desk as scheduled where he/she would handle both online research (using services such as Lexis-Nexis, Dow Jones) and video research within our in-house database; cataloging/indexing of video records entered into our database; and other projects as assigned.

  5. Are you or your organization affected by copyright and intellectual property rights issues? How so?

    6. Copyright issues should be important to every librarian. We are always concerned about copyright and intellectual property in the information we use and provide to people at CNN. We also are conscious of how outside people and companies use CNN transcripts and footage - our sales office within the Library handles requests from companies for CNN footage and arranges for proper licensing of that footage.

  6. How do you market yourself and the services of your unit to the organization? Describe successes and failures.

    7. We don't do anything too formal, but our web site serves to bring a lot of information about the Library and our services to CNN newsroom users and to others at Turner Broadcasting System. In addition, I work with many people in our newsroom who have demonstrated particular interest in or skill in working with research tools - they form sort of a core group of people with whom I often do beta testing of new products. And they also form a great informal channel for getting the word out about new services.

  7. How much resource sharing do you use? Describe ILL and other activities which help you to meet the information needs of your users when resources are not locally available.

    8. Since the bulk of our work is for breaking news or for news production with a fairly quick turnaround time we make heavy use of resources which are immediately available. ILL systems and delivery schedules typically don't work within our time frame for daily research. With more long-term research projects of course we are able to make use of remote collections, ILL etc.

  8. Do you have experience with outsourcing? Please describe the details in depth.

    9. Outsourcing is not typically used with our professional level positions or duties. We do utilize an outside company (Federal Documents Clearinghouse) to transcribe CNN programming however and FDCH transmits our transcripts directly to Lexis-Nexis where they are available to researchers.

  9. What changes or projects have you or are you implementing? How have you approached the management and users about these changes?

    10. I've been very heavily involved with the implementation and rollout of end-user research tools like Lexis-Nexis Universe and Dow Jones Interactive in our newsroom and in other departments. My goal is to bring good basic information closer to our reporters, writers, and producers. I spend a great deal of my time organizing and conducting training programs for our users - a great deal of education goes into helping people understand what resources they can now use successfully on their own, and when they might benefit from consulting with a librarian on more advanced research projects. On the archive side of our operation we are beginning to design a new video archive database which will work with a digital image collection. This is part of a larger project for CNN in that all of our incoming video will be digitized, we will edit video in a digital environment and of course we will search across digitized images in our archive system.

  10. How did you get/keep your job? Any job hunting tips or advice?

    11. My situation is probably a bit unusual - I'd been working as a news researcher at the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 7 years before coming to CNN. I was already very drawn to the world of news research and making the transition from print to television was a natural one for me. I've moved up through four different positions during my time here and am currently Director of News Research. The job hunting advice I'd give to students is to visit lots of special libraries including news libraries, discover some of the differences, if you think you are interested in news do an internship if possible to see if you'd really be comfortable with the pace and demands, join the Newslib listserv and follow the professional news threads there to see what working news librarians are dealing with everyday.

  11. What can be realistically expected from new graduates in terms of specific skills and orientation? How important is previous experience prior to the MLS degree? How important is subject specialization? How can deficiencies be compensated for? For example, do you look for students who have had practicums in relevant areas?

    12. When I am looking for a really strong high-level researcher I generally want someone who has had some significant experience in a news or other special library environment. Someone fresh out of library school might be considered for a very entry-level position assuming that course work and/or internships give that person some applicable skills either in research or in cataloging/indexing. If I expect a new hire to be heavily involved with web design/research etc a newish grad may actually have an advantage because he/she may have had some significant coursework in web design recently. A graduate who has had some exposure to a news or other fast-paced environment will always have a slight advantage since we tend to be so driven by deadline pressures at CNN and that can be overwhelming for an unprepared new employee.

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